New Zealand’s midwifery model is unique: Lead Maternity Carers (LMCs) work largely independently, managing a full caseload of women through pregnancy, birth, and the postnatal period — often without the administrative infrastructure that supports other health professionals. The documentation burden is significant, and it falls almost entirely on the midwife. AI can take a meaningful chunk of that off your plate.
How NZ Midwives Are Using AI
Clinical Documentation and Notes
After a home visit, clinic appointment, or birth, AI can help you structure your clinical notes quickly. Dictate your observations by voice, paste the raw text into an AI tool, and ask it to format as a structured clinical record. You review and refine — but the first draft is done in seconds. For LMCs managing large caseloads, this alone can save an hour or more each day.
LMC Handover and Transfer Summaries
Handover documentation — whether transferring care to a secondary service, writing a GP summary, or preparing a postnatal discharge letter — follows consistent patterns. AI can generate first drafts from your dot-point notes. You ensure accuracy and clinical appropriateness; AI handles the writing.
Client Education Resources
AI is excellent at generating plain-language client education content. Topics you explain repeatedly — signs of labour, breastfeeding basics, safe sleep guidelines, postnatal warning signs — can be drafted as handouts, FAQ sheets, or email summaries. Content can be adapted for different literacy levels or translated into te reo Māori or Pacific languages as appropriate for your client community.
Referral Letters
When referring a woman to an obstetrician, specialist, or secondary maternity service, AI can draft the referral letter from your clinical notes. You provide the clinical reasoning; AI structures it into a professional, readable letter appropriate for the receiving clinician.
Practice Administration
For self-employed LMC midwives, AI can help with the business side of practice: drafting your initial consultation information pack, writing responses to enquiries, creating your practice policies (informed consent, transfer of care, late booking), and preparing invoices or claim summaries for ACC and the Ministry of Health.
Research and Professional Development
NZCOM (New Zealand College of Midwives) members are required to maintain professional development. AI can help you summarise research articles, prepare case study reflections for your professional portfolio, and draft CPD activity records. Use it to stay current with evidence without spending your evenings wading through journals.
Te Tiriti and Culturally Responsive Practice
AI can help you prepare resources that incorporate te ao Māori perspectives on maternity and hauora — including content about whānau-centred care, karakia, and the cultural significance of the whenua (placenta). Use AI as a drafting tool, but always have culturally appropriate content reviewed by someone with lived expertise.
Important Limits
Midwifery is a regulated profession under the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003. AI does not replace clinical judgment, assessment, or the midwifery partnership relationship. Be especially careful with:
- Clinical decision-making — AI cannot assess a woman’s clinical status, interpret CTG traces, or make intrapartum decisions
- Risk documentation — documentation of complicated cases, transfers, and adverse events requires your professional judgment and accurate contemporaneous records
- Informed consent — AI cannot facilitate the informed consent process; this requires your presence and clinical explanation
- Culturally sensitive content — AI-generated content about Māori or Pacific maternity practices must be reviewed by someone with appropriate cultural authority
Privacy Considerations for Maternity Records
Maternity records are among the most sensitive health records held. Under the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020 and the Health Information Privacy Code, you must handle this information with particular care:
- Never paste identifiable client information (name, NHI, address, clinical details) into consumer AI tools like ChatGPT or Claude.ai
- Use anonymised identifiers when drafting notes with AI assistance
- Consider a locally-hosted AI solution if you regularly process maternity records digitally
- Be aware that some AI tools may use inputs for model training — check the terms of service of any tool you use
Getting Started
- This week: Use AI to draft a plain-language handout on one topic you explain repeatedly (e.g., signs of labour, safe sleep, breastfeeding positions)
- Next week: Try dictating your next postnatal visit notes and having AI structure them into a clinical record format
- This month: Have AI help you write or update your practice information pack and transfer-of-care policy
Want to Build AI Into Your Midwifery Practice Properly?
An AI Roadmap Workshop can identify exactly where AI will save the most time in your practice — whether you’re an LMC in independent practice or part of a group midwifery service. We also offer team training for healthcare organisations across New Zealand.
