A classroom at East Carolina University’s College of Nursing of Wednesday was filled with pregnant women gladly having their abdomens pushed and pulled, measured and diagrammed.

Doing the hands-on examinations were about a dozen nurses studying online and on the ECU campus to advance their primary care skills by becoming certified nurse midwives, the only program of its kind in North Carolina.

The students — and their patient-facilitators — were there because of their passionate wish to share the birth experience fully and get life off to a healthy start for babies, they said.

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