The Health Care Options Available During Pregnancy

Being a midwife refers to a profession where the midwife would work in partnership with the women throughout her pregnancy, labour and the postpartum period. Not only is being a midwife women-centred, however, their role also includes ensuring the partner and family members are prepared and aware of the process. Within a women’s health, the midwife should focus on health, family planning, nutrition, domestic and other health issues as the main priority is the

Midwives identify high risked pregnancies and they make referrals to doctors and other medical specialists.

For hundred of years, women have wrestled with their womanhood, bodies, and what it means to be a woman in our society. Being a woman comes with a wonderful and empowering responsibility--giving birth. What sets us aside from other countries is that the process and expectations of giving birth has changed in our society; coming from midwifery, as it has always been since the early times, to hospitals where it is now expected to give birth at. Midwifery was a common practice in delivering babies in

By 1938, the number had shrunk to half. Today the number is less than 1 percent.” (qtd. in The Business of Being Born,2007). 1909, Hannah Porn was arrested and jailed for 3 months; her only crime was that she “was a practicing midwife” (p.1022). That same year, Massachusetts became the first state to outlaw midwives, and other states were soon to follow. As concluded in the book Remarks on the Employment of Females as Practitioners in Midwifery "Both the character and education of women disqualify them for the office."(1820 p. 4). "Legalizing the midwife will work a definite hardship to those physicians who have become well-trained in obstetrics for it will have a definite tendency to decrease their sphere of influence." (Huntington, MD; 1913). Dr. Holms in 1920 stated, "Only the properly trained physician who has acquired surgical technique with specialty training in obstetric physiology and pathology is competent to circumvent the many ills of childbirth." This was the beginning of the push for the ending of midwifery (Dr. Neal Devitt’s Thesis). The Committee on Maternal Welfare of the Philadelphia County Medical Society (1934) “expressed concern over the rate of deaths of infants from birth injuries increased 62% from 1920 to 1929.” This was happening concurrently to the decline in midwife-attended births and the increase in surgical obstetrical births. As explained by a simple Freudian concept,

In the simplest terms, a midwife is someone, traditionally female, who assists women in childbirth. Yet, a midwife is much more than an assistant in the process of labor, but a strong, wise woman, capable of holding the lives of the mother and child. Throughout history, women have assisted each other through pregnancy and delivery. It was not until the discovery of new germ theories and the development of biomedicine that traditional midwifery has been pushed to the side. However, despite wishes of allopathic doctors, midwives have stood strong and remained present worldwide.

Obstetricians and midwives both have a standard that they all need to be aware of and know when working with women in antenatal, birth and post natal. They need to both be able to help assist the women in choosing a mode of care that is suitable for her needs. (Ranzcog.edu.au, 2011)

　　Nancy Dye’s, History of Childbirth in America, explores the social evolution of childbirth by breaking it into three stages: before the 18th century, late 18th century to 1919, and the 1920s on. In the first stage, pregnancy is a social event that is attended to by midwives and female friends and relatives.[ Nancy Dye, History of Childbirth in America. (1980), 97-108.] It was the pinnacle of femininity and the power women held. The midwife, who was not seen as a medical professional would see to everything in the pregnant woman’s home where the birth would take place by natural means.[ Dye, History of Child Birth in America, 97-108] Even though this was seen as a happy moment it was crowded with the cultural emphasis on the likelihood of pain and death that brought fear and confusion to women.[ Dye, History of Child Birth in America, 97-108] This stage in the history of childbirth is important to understand because it is this era that acts as a foundation for the rest to come. Also, as the stages are followed through one will

In the United States, midwives attend less than 8 percent of all births. In Europe and Japan, midwives attend over 70 percent (New Line Home Entertainment). People say that midwives are not needed in today’s world because of the abundance of nurses and doctors. This may be true, but the United States has the second worst infant mortality rate and one of the highest maternal mortality rate in the developed world. Hospitals and other health professional places are tricking women into thinking that they need an induced labor, an epidural, or even a cesarean section, but they really do not. The documentary The Business of Being Born dives into the history of birthing in the United States, the labor process at a hospital, as well as the role of

Nurse midwives are advanced practice master’s degree or higher prepared nurses who specialize in the care of women from adolescence to menopause (Presley, 2014). “Nurse-midwives provide primary care, gynecologic care, family planning, preconception care, care during pregnancy and childbirth, postpartum care, care of the normal newborn during the first month of life, and treatment of male partners for sexually transmitted infection (Presley, 2014).” Nurse midwife dates back to 1920’s and care was mainly provided in rural areas where access to healthcare was limited and there was a high infant death rate (Presley, 2014).

Midwifery is a term that is not heard of much now because of the advances in medical technology. Midwifery is the practice of helping or assisting women during the pregnancy including during childbirth and the postpartum period. Midwifes are typically associated with home births, but can actually be used in a hospital setting. Midwifes are used all over the world and are usually the most experienced worker attending, but in many places in the United States ,such as Alabama, midwifery is illegal. Giving birth in hospitals are thought to be safer than using a midwife and birthing a child at home.With that being stated it is certainly a shock with midwifery being illegal in most states that the United States is only listed 21st in countries with the lowest infant mortality rate. Midwiferytoday.com is a website amd printed magazine that advocates for the practice of midwifery. Shea Richland, a now retired midwife and childbirth educator, has one article on midwiferytoday.com. The title of her article is Birth Rape: Another Midwife’s Story. The violent title is enough to make anyone shy away from reading it, but the title is a good reflection of the article. Shea Richland wrote the article to tell about her experiences in life, and also to explain what pushed her to becoming a midwife.

I am aware of the tasks ahead of becoming a midwife; it is a journey of many years with which one would be enhanced with impeccable skills and experience in many different situations and settings. Some of the responsibilities of being a midwife involves giving pregnant women advice on healthy eating, explaining the options of having the baby at the hospital or at home, natural childbirth or through operation, the different types of pain reliefs available and checking the health of both mother and baby during pregnancy. During labour it is the midwifes responsibility to monitor how labour is progressing, advising mothers on ways to manage the pain, deliver the baby and once the baby is born visit to the mothers home to check on her and the baby which is also very

In past centuries, only women attended to women during childbirth. Men were usually not involved, unless they were needed for their strength or other emergencies. However, with the medicalization of childbirth, the presence of male physicians emerged. By the 19th century, tensions between male physicians and midwives heightened as male physicians began to introduce new techniques and anatomical knowledge that interfered with the traditional social birthing process. Much of this tension rose from the gender roles that categorized the work and success of men and women within the work of childbirth. In A Midwife’s Tale, Laurel Ulrich explores Martha’s diary to present the challenges midwives faced during the late 18th century. Midwives, such as Martha Ballard, were challenged by male physicians and diverged from the style of their work because of the perception that omen were considered more emotional, nurturing, and social in their work while men were more knowledgeable of science, anatomy, and new tools.

There are many options available during pregnancy, so why would the mother want to choose a midwife? Midwifery is a natural approach to labor and delivery that offers a less intrusive kind of birthing environment, more birthing options, and midwives are able to accommodate the specific needs and wants of the mother. When a person has the correct information from a credible source regarding what a midwife really entails, the answer will be easy to decide. To get the correct information needed about midwifery, it is important to have various credible sources to validate the author’s claims, and to decide if the information presented will be useful to making the decision to choose a midwife. The sources below will be based off of these two standards.

This paper will focus on the differences and conflicts between doctors and midwifes. Doctors have been been the lead care providers for women for hundreds of years. Just short of one-hundred years ago Mary Breckinridge became the first midwife in the united states. Today there doctors and midwives have an ongoing feud. Many doctors feel as if midwives are uneducated and are not trained enough to provide health care to women, and do not agree with their more natural approach to child birth. However there conflict is slowly but surly being resolved, as many health care facilities are allowing midwives to have more authority in the work place. Secondly, this paper will go over the differences between doctors and midwives, many people are uneducated

Hearing the word midwife leaves many people thinking of unprofessional, inexperienced women who help deliver babies naturally, without the help of medication. In truth, nurse-midwives are registered nurses who have attended additional schooling for women’s health and are taught to make women feel as comfortable as possible. In the beginning, remedies were the females’ legacies, their “birthright”; these females were known as “wise-women by the people, witches of charlatans by authorities”. (Ehrenreich, 1973). “Females were wanderers, traveling from one place to another, healing the sick and wounded.” (Ehrenreich 1973). These women were among the first human healers and they were especially helpful when it came to childbearing. The midwives