Purpose: Midwives working in hospitals (MWH) have limited roles in managing and assisting births independently. To find the reason for this and to find ways to successfully integrate midwifery into care systems, exploring midwives’ work-related perceptions might be the first step. The purpose of this study was to compare professionalism and job satisfaction among midwives working in birthing centers (MWBC) and MWH. Methods: A descriptive comparative design was used, querying 19 MWBC and 53 MWH in Korea. Data accrued from October 2017 to November 2017 using the Professionalism Inventory Scale and the job satisfaction scale. Results: Age, marital status, monthly income, length of career as a midwife, and length of career in the current workplace were significantly different between MWBC and MWH. The level of professionalism among MWBC showed significant differences by position at the birthing center (t=16.19, p=.001). Professionalism and job satisfaction among MWH showed significant differences depending on perceived professional performance (F=9.95, p<.001 and F=11.04, p<.001, respectively). Levels of professionalism and job satisfaction were higher for MWBC than for MWH. Conclusion Educational programs designed to enhance professionalism and expand the role of MWH are suggested. Also, a need exists to develop policy for midwives at hospitals and a legal system so MWH in Korea can perform their midwifery jobs and be properly reimbursed.

Purpose: This study aimed to analyze the tasks of midwives who lead natural childbirth in hospitals using the DACUM technique. Methods: Data were collected from 42 hospital midwives between August 23 to October 12, 2022, and the importance, frequency, and professional difficulty of hospital midwives' tasks were assessed. The collected data were analysed using the IBM SPSS Statistics ver. 22.0 program as the average and standard deviation for the importance, difficulty, and frequency of performance the analyzed tasks. The importance, difficulty, and frequency of performance each task were indicated as high, medium, or low,; furthermore, the importance and difficulty were multiplied and analyzed using the coefficient of determination.Result: Midwives’ tasks in natural childbirth in hospitals were classified into 8 duties, 138 tasks, and 49 task elements. Duties were classified into ‘before childbirth,’ ‘during childbirth,’ ‘after childbirth,’ ‘management of high-risk pregnant women,’ ‘goods management,’ ‘administrative work,’ ‘self-development,’ and ‘newborn care.’ The most important and difficult tasks with the highest coefficient of determination were performing neonatal resuscitation if necessary (11.25), transporting and managing emergency patients (10.46), requesting hospitals to transfer patients in case of emergency (10.43), and transferring patients to a tertiary hospital in case of maternal of neonatal emergency (10.30). Conclusion In this novel study in Korea, the role of a midwife in a hospital for natural childbirth were defined, and task according to duties were analyzed.