"I love birth; I love it," said Mrs Pettit, charge midwife at Wanganui Hospital.
"It's an absolute honour to be involved in that process and to be there when that woman has a baby."
Mrs Pettit has been in the baby business for a long time, first becoming a midwife in 1992 after working as a nurse. She now co-ordinates the maternity services at the hospital.
"We do sometimes still get called nurses," she said.
"Some of us have been, but these days the majority are only midwives."
This is something they hope to highlight during International Day of the Midwife, which has been celebrated every year since 1991 on May 5.
"This is what this day is about: identifying midwifery," said Mrs McDougal, a rural midwife currently employed by the Whanganui District Health Board (WDHB).
"They are the guardians of normal birth. We believe in the nature of pain. Nurses believe in medicine."
Mrs Tucker said people often didn't realise midwives did not work alone.
"A lot of people think of us as independent, but we've got a whole team around us and behind us," she said.
From June 2012 to June 2013, Wanganui had 80 per cent normal births, as well as only 14.5 per cent caesarean sections, which she said was "really good" and about half the rate of some other DHBs.
There were 10 home births over that period.
The International Day of the Midwife would be celebrated in Wanganui with morning tea, afternoon tea, and supper, as well as a special dinner for midwives and their "hard-working partners".
"Your family often comes second," said Mrs Tucker, who spends at least 40 hours a week with pregnant women or new mothers, as well as being on call 24/7.
"I have every third weekend off on call," she said.
Wanganui has about 20 midwives employed in the hospital, three employed rurally, and 13 self-employed in the community.
This year's International Day of the Midwife theme is "Midwives: changing the world one family at a time".
