The course is written for anyone working with women in labour. The majority of our learners comprise of Midwives, Student Midwives, Doulas, Student Doulas, and sometimes include Maternity or Health Care Assistants, Aromatherapists and Childbirth Educators. Those wishing to complete the course for personal use may do so, with the understanding that it is aimed at the professional user.

Both the e-course and teaching day provide detailed theoretical knowledge of five essential oils. A variety of applications are demonstrated including using blends of essential oils effectively. The course includes basic massage training and covers health, safety, legal and ethical issues.

Those successfully completing our course are certified as competent to practice straight away. Local Trust guidelines will advise as to whether completion of a recognised course, such as our RCM accredited one is adequate or if further in-house or other training would be required prior to using aromatherapy at work. Although it may be some time before you can use it at work if there is no guideline in place you will be in a position to advise women in your care who are using essential oils without training, to encourage its safe and effective use. We will also encourage and support you to implement a service if none is in place where you work.

No. We feel strongly that we do not want the quality of our course to be diluted by cascading training. We are happy to provide you with details of a study day for your workplace, and you can book on to one of our open study days, when Covid-19 restrictions are lifted, or enrole on our e-course any time.

There is no need for yearly ‘top up’ training following our course. If a midwife considers herself competent and confident to continue to use aromatherapy in the way we teach it. We are however working on expansions to our course for those who have completed our course and are looking to build on their knowledge.

We work with individuals who are keen to get a service up and running in their Trusts to encourage and support their efforts. We have written a sample guideline which is free and available to our course attendees to help write theirs. We also network with midwives in areas where it is already in place to learn how the successful implementations came about. We encourage Trusts to make policies which enable midwives who have attended quality training courses to practice if they are certified and deem themselves to be competent.

For those of you collecting points, completion of our Aromatherapy for Childbirth course earns you 7 CPD points.

There are no nationally agreed guidelines on Aromatherapy use in childbirth, nor is there a UK wide accepted policy for implementing the application of aromatherapy by midwives. There are a number of providers of NHS care where pioneering midwives have gained training, written guidelines and have integrated aromatherapy into their maternity service. It is important, when working for NHS Trusts and other employers that you have guidelines for aromatherapy in place and work within them.

You can become an Friend member of the IFA to enhance training and knowledge, receiving the journal, granted access to research, discount off events, products and supplies www.ifaroma.org