To analyze the research status, development trend and frontier hotspots of midwifery education in China in recent 20 years.

Based on the topic of "midwifery education" or "midwifery teaching", this paper searched the periodical literatures from 2001 to 2021 on CNKI database, and used CiteSpace5.7R5 software to analyze them visually and generate knowledge map.

A total of 548 Chinese papers were included in this study, and the annual number of published papers showed an overall upward trend. The research field of midwifery education in China formed an obvious core team, and there was few cooperation among core author groups. Health Vocational Education, Chinese Nursing Education and Chinese Higher Medical Education were the top three journals. The six topics with the highest frequency were midwifery specialty, midwifery personnel, midwifery education, practice teaching, delivery mode and teaching mode, forming 10 clusters of midwifery education. In recent three years, the research of midwifery education in China has gradually changed into simulation teaching, flipped classroom, postpartum rehabilitation and so on.

The research scope of midwifery education in China is wide and has formed an obvious core team, but the correlation is weak and there is less communication and cooperation among the research teams. The research in the field of high-level midwifery education is insufficient. Midwifery educators and researchers should pay enough attention to carry out in-depth research on relevant aspects.

Midwifery education; Research hotspot; Knowledge map; Visualization analysis