I have been in the same boat myself, been stuggling with weather I should become a CNM or CPM. I am currently an RN in an ICU. Also started taking classes towards my BSN, but I am so not happy doing it. I think for me it would be better to take the CPM route, I love the whole aspect of 'holistic' birthing. Currently I am taking the Conscious Birth Emissary training and will sign up for the Conscious Birth Doula Mentorship as well within the next week. I wanna get into it and not waste my time taking classes I don't care much about for next 2-3 yrs.

Marquette University in Wisconsin has an MSN program (Direct Entry) for students who have a Bachelors in something other than nursing. Completing the Pre-MSN phase, permits sitting for the NCLEX-RN; after passing you are able to work as a nurse. Completing the MSN portion awards a MSN and one of the options for Certification is in Midwifery.

You can also become a Licensed Midwife (LM) in Wisconsin without being a nurse first. There is a DEM program in Fenimore WI that has a program. It's an Associates Degree though.

I have also been battling this question for a long time. CNM or CPM??? I originally planned to apply to the direct-entry programs at a few grad schools. These all had a 1 year fast track nursing curriculum followed by 2 years of midwifery education. There are actually quite a few of these schools out there. The program is for those who hold bachelor's degrees in something other than nursing. The schools I was looking at: UCSF, Emory, Yale, OHSU, Cal State Fullerton, Marquette, and East Carolina.
Then I went to The Farm's Midwife Assistant workshop this past summer and met Ina May and the rest of the amazing Farm midwives. They really changed my mind about pursuing CNM credentials, mainly because it costs so much to go to graduate school. Also, the midwives that came up with the CPM title worked so hard to get the apprentice model recognized as a viable educational route.
I had already applied to UCSF, Emory (in Georgia) and Yale. I didn't get into any of these schools though. They are all super competitive and I know UCSF is $60,000!!!
I then started looking at MEAC schools for the CPM route, but couldn't find a preceptor in my community. I met with one CNM in my town who told me that all midwives trust birth, not just CPM's who are not trained in nursing and med school! This made a lot of sense to me.
And now, I have started to assist my very favorite homebirth midwife. She is a CNM who does both hospital and home births. She told me that it can be financially hard to support yourself as a CPM in a small rural community. There just isn't as bad of a demand for homebirth. In a bigger more urban area, one can feasibly make a nine living.
So I have decided that I am, after all, going to pursue nurse midwifery. I'm applying to my local community college's RN program. I know it will take a while to get to be a CNM, but that's all right. I will hopefully attend Frontier Nurse Midwifery School.

Hi, I thought I'd chime in, since I gave this a LOT of thought myself. I live in Illinois, where CPMs cannot legally practice. This is a horrible state for birth, hands-down. I found myself connecting and affiliating more with CPMs, but I have a lot of long-term goals that I feel that I can accomplish better as a CNM. I spoke with several CNMs, who were able to create change within their own hospitals and medical systems. A lot of the women I'd be serving would be stuck delivering in the hospital, so in the end, it made sense for me to go the CNM route. As a CNM, I'd have the option of doing hospital or home births, so I do feel like I'm still keeping my options open. One of my long-term goals is to open up a freestanding birth center (they just became legalized in Illinois, but none yet exist). I'd like to partner with holistic doctors and other practitioners, but I think I'd have better luck with that as a CNM. Eventually, I'd like to be able to change the perception of birth and midwifery, and I feel that I'd have more "pull" if I have "their" kind of education. Truth be told, if I lived in a different state, I probably would've chosen the CPM route. I hope that helps! It's not an easy decision to make, I know. Follow your heart.

Reading all of these posts is so inspiring! On the down side, it shows how much I despise the state vs. federal regulatory aspects that we have to deal with in the US...

I plan on pursuing CNM and eventually opening my own homebirth midwifery practice here in NYC which (as I've learned from y'all) has a VASTLY different birth related climate.

Here in NY, CNM's are NOT mandated by the state to work in conjunction with an OB. They are viewed as autonomous medical professionals with the capacity to run their own practices without outside collaboration which is what I absolutely LOVE!

We have a very different demographic in NYC and that allows for a very wide clientele base. Even though most insurances don't consider any midwives to be in-network providers, their services are still billable and navigating the world of medical billing for a midwife is still quite difficult (though the help of a knowledge medical biller really does make all the difference!) That being said, there are also plenty of patients who have the financial means to pay the 10k out of pocket for their idealized homebirth (that's the average for a HB CNM here.) CPM's are legal in NY but I've never met any nor have I heard of any CPM practices in the NY metro area...

I chose to go the route of becoming a CNM before I had ever heard what a CPM was but even so, I prefer the medical background associated with CNM's. I was pre-med in undergrad so I revel the thought of a med-intensive career and I'm (fortunately) young enough to spend the next few years committing myself to it.

I also plan on working as an RN before doing my CNM master's for several reasons. For one, when I was planning on becoming an MD, I was torn between surgery and trauma - it was that which drew me to medicine in the first place. As an RN, I want to work in one of the Level 1 trauma centers here in NYC because working as such will allow me to save up for the Master's I'd be pursuing in the near future. It would also allow me to gain ER/trauma experience which would be quite handy when volunteering my services abroad in 3rd world countries through Doctors Without Borders (midwives work under the auspices of DWB) which has been a dream of mine since pre-pubescence.

One of the things that makes having my own homebirth midwifery practice an ideal is the freedom of being able to up and leave for an international trip for months at a time but then be able to return to a financially prosperous and soul-fulfilling practice. All of the homebirth midwives I know here have to turn away moms EVERY month because they're already booked!