Cultivating Wisdom in the Nursing Profession

When I was a new nurse orienting on the unit, I met Colette. She was just on the edge of retirement, having worked in Labor & Delivery for over 40 years. She wasn’t my preceptor, but I immediately wished she was.

One day, I sat in the hallway with my preceptor while the laboring mom we were assigned to screamed from inside her room. My preceptor glanced toward the door and said, “Oh, sounds like she’ll get her epidural soon,” then continued chatting casually. Colette quietly walked over, handed me a warm pack, and nodded toward the room.

Colette had a warm and subtle presence. And she gave the best hugs. I’d heard that she sometimes sat in the rocking chair with her eyes closed and could call out the fetal heart rate with complete accuracy. She taught through presence—through calm, safety, and quiet knowing. I was disappointed I couldn’t work with her more. She was someone who knew.

After five years in the hospital, I left knowing I needed something different. I sought out a traditional midwife whose approach contrasted completely with the one I had known. Each pathway—nursing and midwifery, hospital and home—holds its own body of knowledge and its own blind spots. I wanted to see birth from multiple perspectives, to understand physiologic birth not just as a clinical event, but as a deeper unfolding.

As a new midwifery student, I once attended a surprise breech birth for a first-time mom. In the room was me, a senior student catching the baby, a newly licensed midwife, and the senior midwife, who had attended over 8,000 births—including nearly 500 breeches—sitting quietly in the corner, charting. The baby’s body was born, but the head was a little stuck. Did the senior midwife leap in? No. She calmly called out the maneuvers from her seat on the floor, guiding the senior student in supporting the birth safely.

Isn’t it interesting that wisdom can be demonstrated quietly from the corner?

Wouldn’t it reassure a laboring family to see their nurse rocking gently, attuned to the fetal heart rate, and radiating calm? I’ve seen many new nurses enter L&D and leave just as quickly. I wonder—are they disheartened by being taught only the tasks, but not receiving the transmission of wisdom? The sense of deeper purpose and meaning in what we do?

When mentorship is absent—when the art of labor sitting, or palpation, or a really great hip squeeze is no longer taught—where do we go? So much physiologic wisdom has been lost across time and culture. If the vertical line of generational teaching is fractured, we must go horizontal. We sit beside one another. We seek the answers together.

Birth workers have been de-skilled in so many ways. We need to actively create spaces for re-skilling.  This goes for nurses, midwives, physicians—all of us.

In labor and delivery units across the country, high turnover and chronic understaffing often mean the most experienced nurse on the unit has only two or three years under her belt. (No pressure!) These times ask us to become intentional about our learning—especially when it comes to physiologic birth. Because wisdom isn’t just a matter of years. It’s about the learning environments we choose. It’s built through reflection, humility, mentorship, mistakes, and deep presence.

And others will come after us. The way we show up, the knowledge we cultivate, and the presence we embody becomes part of what’s possible for them. We shape the path for the next generation.

May we cultivate that wisdom together. May we become the ones who know. May we teach from the corner.