Background. In the department of nursing at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, one of the requirements for students to complete their Bachelor of Nursing Science degree is to choose a pregnant woman and follow up on her care, through pregnancy, during birth and up to 6 weeks after delivery. Objective. To explore and describe student midwives' experiences in the follow-up of a woman through pregnancy, birth, postpartum and until 6 weeks after delivery. Methods. The research

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... was qualitative, descriptive, exploratory and contextual. Purposive sampling was used, and 21 student midwives consented to be part of the study. Semi-structured face-to-face interviews were conducted with the student midwives after they completed the follow-up project. These interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed verbatim by an independent transcribing service. Results. The findings in relation to the research question were synthesised under three themes: building relationships with the women; challenges associated with the follow-up experience; and positive aspects of this experience. Conclusion. The follow-up experience provided midwifery students with unique and important learning opportunities that they would not have experienced in standard or hospital-based clinical placements alone. This open-access article is distributed under Creative Commons licence CC-BY-NC 4.0.