Past and present midwifery education in Turkey

Among criteria relating to the level of development in a country are health indicators such as total fertility, maternal mortality, infant mortality, and rates of life expectancy at birth. These have a close relationship with the quality of health-care services, especially those provided by midwives. An improvement in midwifery services can be achieved to a great extent by standardised and high-quality midwifery education. Until recently, midwifery education has not been standardised in Turkey. Although improvements have been made, more needs to be accomplished. In this paper, we report the development of midwifery education in Turkey from a historical perspective, dealing with past and present applications, and make recommendations to overcome existing problems.