Monika Greening

Monika Greening with her dog Milou
Monika Greening
Born
Monika Edinger

(1965-04-19)19 April 1965
Died9 January 2026(2026-01-09) (aged 60)
OccupationsMidwife, nursing scientist, professor
Known forDevelopment of midwifery science in Germany

Monika Greening (née Edinger; 19 April 1965 – 9 January 2026)[1] was a German midwife, nursing scientist and professor. From the 2000s onwards, she was involved in the development of midwifery science in German-speaking countries;[2] according to the German Society of Midwifery Science (DGHWi), she played a decisive role in shaping the discipline in Germany over many years.[2]

Career

In 1993, Greening, whose family came from Lower Bavaria and Wiesbaden,[3] completed her midwifery training in Giessen. She then worked as a midwife in Mainz and Darmstadt. In 2001, she began studying nursing science at the Protestant University of Applied Sciences Darmstadt, graduating in 2005 with a Diplom degree.[3] She worked as a midwife until 2008, taking on her first part-time lectureships from 2006. In 2011, she completed her doctorate in the field of vocational education at the Technical University of Darmstadt.[4]

At the Protestant University of Applied Sciences Nuremberg she taught as a part-time lecturer from 2010 and, following her doctorate, was professor of nursing science there from 2011 to 2012.[4] From 2011, she held a professorship in midwifery science in the department of health and nursing at the Catholic University of Applied Sciences Mainz. Greening was one of the first professors of midwifery science in Germany.[5] In Mainz she had primary responsibility for setting up and delivering the degree programme in midwifery science.[6] She also served for a time as dean and vice-dean.[3][7]

In 2020, she moved to Ludwigshafen University of Applied Sciences, where she took up a professorship in midwifery science in the department of social work and health care and remained until her death.[8] In Ludwigshafen she contributed to the creation of the midwifery science degree programme introduced in 2021 and designed the skills and simulation centre.[3][9]

From 2012 to 2018, Greening served on the board of the DGHWi, initially as an ordinary board member and from 2016 as chair.[10][11]

Greening died on 9 January 2026 at the age of 60.[8] She lived with her family in Seeheim-Jugenheim; her husband was Giorgio Greening.[1][3]

Views

As part of her board work at the DGHWi, Greening was also involved in drawing up the German S3 clinical guideline "Sectio Caesarea" on caesarean sections.[3] In the Frankfurter Rundschau, Greening pointed to the health risks of caesarean sections, whose numbers had risen sharply, including a higher risk of allergies or asthma, a growing risk of complications for mothers in subsequent births and difficulties in bonding with the newborn.[12]

Greening supported making midwifery an all-graduate profession, on the grounds that the work had become considerably more demanding as a result of older mothers, cultural diversity and more complex medical cases, and that vocational training alone was no longer sufficient. She also called for better working conditions and higher pay to make the profession more attractive.[13]

In an interview with the newspaper Darmstädter Echo, Greening called for more births to take place in dedicated birth clinics and birthing centres rather than in hospitals. The natural process of birth, she argued, should not be confined to hospital settings or treated as an illness.[9]

Selected works

Doctoral thesis

  • Identifizierung von Belastungsfaktoren und Beanspruchung von Hebammenschülerinnen während der Berufsausbildung. Doctoral thesis, Technical University of Darmstadt, Department of Human Sciences, Institute of General Pedagogy and Vocational Pedagogy. Darmstadt 2011.

Journal articles

  • with Beate Ramsayer and Werner Spikofski: Die Mitgliederversammlung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Hebammenwissenschaft (DGHWi) hat ihr Leitbild verabschiedet. In: GMS Zeitschrift für Hebammenwissenschaft. Vol. 3, 2016, Doc01. doi:10.3205/zhwi000006
  • with Rainhild Schäfers, Gertrud Ayerle, Elke Mattern and Nina Knape: Stellungnahme zu Interventionen in der Hebammenarbeit. In: Zeitschrift für Hebammenwissenschaft. 2012.
  • Body-Feedback. Wie Hebammen das emotionale Befinden der Frau positiv beeinflussen können. In: Die Hebamme. Thieme, January 2017. doi:10.1055/s-0042-122039

References

  1. 1 2 "Monika Greening". VRM Trauer (in German). Retrieved 2026-08-10.
  2. 1 2 Saalmann, Heike (2026-01-16). "Nachruf: Wir trauern um Prof.in Dr. Monika Greening". DGHWi (in German). Retrieved 2026-08-10.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Wassmann, Elena (2026-01-14). "Nachruf auf Professorin Dr. Monika Greening". Ludwigshafen University of Applied Sciences (in German). Retrieved 2026-08-10.
  4. 1 2 "Prof. Dr. phil. Monika Greening" (PDF). DGHWi (in German). Retrieved 2026-08-10.
  5. ↑ "Nachruf Monika Greening" (PDF). DGHWi (in German). Retrieved 2026-08-10.
  6. ↑ "Nachruf auf Professorin Dr. Monika Greening". Katholische Hochschule Mainz (in German). 2026-01-16. Retrieved 2026-08-10.
  7. ↑ Ulrike Stumm (2017-11-11). "Hebammenschule feiert Geburtstag" [Midwifery school celebrates anniversary]. Saarbrücker Zeitung (in German). No. 261. p. 20.
  8. 1 2 "Nachruf auf Professorin Dr. Monika Greening". Empower (in German). Retrieved 2026-08-10.
  9. 1 2 Döring, Andrea (2020-10-28). "Ludwigshafen: Hebammenausbildung an der Hochschule". Darmstädter Echo (in German). Retrieved 2026-08-10.
  10. ↑ Zeitschrift für Hebammenwissenschaft (ZHWi), vol. 5, no. 2, 2017. DGHWi.
  11. ↑ Gertrud M. Ayerle (2016-02-24). "Hebammen in der Deutschen Gesellschaft". Mitteldeutsche Zeitung (in German) (Halle ed.).
  12. ↑ Rippegather, Jutta (2019-01-10). "Eltern finden keine Hebamme". Frankfurter Rundschau (in German). Retrieved 2026-08-10.
  13. ↑ "Hebammen-Studium an der Hochschule soll akademisch werden". Die Welt (in German). 2019. Retrieved 2026-08-10.


This page is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.