Maternal and child health (MCH) care is a specialization in the field of public health that focuses on women, infants and children. Pregnancy and childhood are points in a person’s life where the risk for serious medical conditions can be high. To prevent this, maternal and child health professionals focus on ensuring that populations of mothers and children, as well as other women of reproductive age, are kept healthy.
Working in women’s health services can be rewarding and enjoyable. Use these tips to prepare for public health jobs involving pregnant women, mothers and children.
- See if your skills and interests match the scope of this career. Maternal and child health professionals are essentially public health professionals that are tasked with taking care of the nation’s women and children as well as their families. While the doctors who focus on women are gynecologists and obstetricians, and the physicians who focus on children are pediatricians, a maternal and health care professional works on large or macroscopic populations of both mothers and children. Care is given to individual patients, but with an eye on global guidelines of care for the particular patient’s age set.
You need to be able to look at populations and environments critically and holistically, so that you can asses which factors are detrimental to the health of mothers and their children, and which factors can be improved to give the mothers and children better health and a higher chance of surviving. Not only are survival rates and well being affected in this country by research done in maternal child health, but also around the world.
As you can see, the scope of the job is large. The typical public health professional may give normal childhood immunizations, work in reproductive health by doing Pap smears, counseling and dispensing birth control, work in a sexually transmitted disease (STD) clinic, or counsel new mothers on the advantages of breast feeding and make a home visit to asses maternal-child well being during those first few days home post delivery. Additionally, some public health units also work with the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program to assess nutritional needs of pregnant women, infants and toddlers. They also check the blood iron levels for malnutrition and lead levels for lead poisoning.
Professionals in this field can work in government, hospitals and clinics, research centers, and even in private firms and non-government organizations. The general tasks that maternal and child care professionals have is to assess communities and neighborhoods, make tests and do research about the conditions of mothers and their children, create action plans and recommendations, create follow up reports on the success or limitations of the plans and improve these plans in the future. Maternal and child health professionals also coordinate with communities, government offices, and relevant organizations to help improve the lives of mothers and children. - Choose an educational path—there are many. For this career, you’ll need to take some of the same steps you’d take to qualify for a public health job. To be a maternal and child health professional, you need to have an undergraduate degree in public health. Most universities, however, consider public health a master’s degree. In this case, you will need to have a separate undergraduate degree, which takes four years to complete, and master’s degree in public health, which takes an additional two years of college. Additional post-graduate degrees in Environmental Health, Behavioral Sciences, Biostatistics, Epidemiology, Health Service Administration and Health Education are also available.
Nurses that work as providers in MCH will need at least a master’s as an advanced practice nurse (APN). The new standard degree for APN will be a Doctorate in Nursing Science, which will take a total of four additional years post baccalaureate. Physicians who work in public health will need a four-year baccalaureate degree and then they’ll need to spend at least another four years in medical school. Then they will do a residency that will take from two to four years. Social workers in this field will need a master’s degree, which will require six years of college education, plus residency. - You'll need a license. All 50 states require licensure for nurses, social workers and physicians. All professionals must pass a licensing examination and keep their license current to practice in the state where they reside. Advanced practice nurses have a separate licensing examination that also must be current in order to practice.
- Don't forget to get certified. There are programs available to become certified in Maternal Child Health that vary in length but generally take about three years to complete. These are geared for managers in the fields of community, social, health and medical services.
- Your salary will depend on the profession. Because the education level is so varied, the salary range is huge. Managers in MCH earn anywhere from $47,000 to $97,000. Case managers may make $45,000 to $102,000 a year. Nurses will earn $48,000 to $76,000. APNs can make $50,000 to $103,000. A physician’s salary range is $121,000 to $180,000. Location, education, experience and facility all play into what the actual salary will be.
- Expect job growth. The market in this area is strong, looking at above average growth in the next 10 years.
If you’re interested in public health, know that there are plenty of sectors that will readily hire you once you have all of your qualifications ready. You can find maternal and child health careers in hospitals and medical centers, or you can work in research laboratories and community organizations. You can even work in organizations such as the United Nations, as a consultant for the committee on women and children. If you have a keen interest in motherhood and children, a public health career in maternal and child health care may be what you’re looking for.