Midwives have a demanding CPD reading workload: NICE intrapartum and postnatal care guidelines, MBRRACE-UK confidential enquiry reports, WHO recommendations, RCM position statements, RCOG green-top guidelines, and journal literature — almost all published as PDF. Reading a 200-page MBRRACE report on a laptop between night shifts is exhausting; converting to EPUB lets you work through it on a Kindle or Kobo during a commute or quieter moment, with chapter navigation so you can jump directly to the relevant section.
This guide covers the main PDF types midwives encounter, where to find them freely, and how to convert them for comfortable e-reader reading.
| Document type | Examples | Free source |
|---|---|---|
| NICE guidelines | Intrapartum care, postnatal care, antenatal care, diabetes in pregnancy | nice.org.uk/guidance |
| MBRRACE-UK reports | Saving Lives, Improving Mothers' Care; MBRRACE perinatal reports | npeu.ox.ac.uk/mbrrace-uk |
| RCM position statements | Home birth, water birth, continuity of care | rcm.org.uk/media |
| RCOG green-top guidelines | Preterm prelabour rupture of membranes, obstetric cholestasis | rcog.org.uk/guidelines |
| WHO recommendations | Intrapartum care for positive childbirth, antenatal care | who.int/publications |
| Journal articles | Midwifery, BJOG, Birth, Women and Birth | OpenAthens / Athens login |
| NHS England documents | Better Births (National Maternity Review), Ockenden Report | england.nhs.uk |
| HCPC / NMC standards | NMC standards for midwives, HCPC CPD standards | nmc.org.uk, hcpc-uk.org |
| BAPM frameworks | British Association of Perinatal Medicine care guidelines | bapm.org/resources |
Chapter navigation tip: Long documents like MBRRACE reports generate a navigable EPUB table of contents — tap the contents icon on your Kindle or Kobo to jump directly to the section on haemorrhage, sepsis, or thrombosis without scrolling through the statistical overview.
Midwives read NICE intrapartum care guidelines and postnatal care guidelines, RCM (Royal College of Midwives) position statements and evidence-based guidelines, WHO recommendations on antenatal and intrapartum care, MBRRACE-UK reports (Mothers and Babies: Reducing Risk through Audits and Confidential Enquiries), RCOG green-top guidelines, and journal articles from Midwifery, BJOG, and Birth. Most NICE guidelines, MBRRACE reports, and WHO recommendations are freely available as PDF.
Some are, some are not. Midwifery (Elsevier) and BJOG (Wiley) are paywalled — access via NHS OpenAthens or university Athens. The journal Birth publishes some open-access articles. WHO recommendations are always free at who.int. NICE guidelines are free at nice.org.uk. MBRRACE-UK reports are free from the Nuffield Department of Population Health website. The RCM publishes some practice guidelines freely on rcm.org.uk.
Yes. MBRRACE-UK reports (the UK confidential enquiries into maternal and perinatal deaths) are published as PDF on npeu.ox.ac.uk. Download the PDF and convert it to EPUB via toolkit.bot — the resulting EPUB is navigable by chapter, letting you jump directly to the clinical learning section relevant to your practice area without scrolling through the full statistical report.
The EPUB conversion preserves the text content faithfully. However, for clinical decision-making at the point of care, always refer to the current authoritative guideline on its official source website — NICE, RCOG, or WHO — rather than a converted file, as guidelines can be updated. EPUB conversion is ideal for CPD background reading and study, not for bedside reference during a clinical procedure.
The main databases are: CINAHL (via NHS OpenAthens) for nursing and midwifery literature; PubMed/MEDLINE for clinical obstetric and perinatal research; Cochrane Pregnancy and Childbirth (free within cochranelibrary.com) for systematic reviews on birth interventions; MIDIRS Maternity and Infant Care (via EBSCO) — the most comprehensive midwifery-specific index; and Maternity and Infant Care (MIC) on OvidSP. Access via your NHS Trust OpenAthens or university Athens login.
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