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Women 's Health Care And The Birthing Process For Centuries

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Nurse Midwife Specialty Paper Colleen M. Slevin Carroll Community College Being among the most highly trained in the field of registered nursing positions, nurse midwives have been bettering women’s health care and the birthing process for centuries. Nurse midwifery can be traced all the way back to the Biblical era from 2200 BC to 1700 BC. During these times, witchcraft and magic was a prevalent fear and since women at this time were not formally educated, it was thought that their talent and understanding of birth, a mystery of life to many at this time, was due to a supernatural force. For these reasons, during births at this time, a Rabbi would attend in case of a difficult delivery. In 2013 as Barnawi, Richter and Habib stated “. . .difficult delivery was seen as caused by witchcraft or black magic and it was believed that only a Rabbi could break this spell” (p.115). However, midwifery during this time was a widely respected practice and was solely performed by women who were among appropriate child bearing ages. Their role encompassed a wide variety of practice still used by midwives today such as management of pregnancies, vaginal exams, utilization of a birthing stool, and identifying fetal gender at birth. According to Barnawi et. al “The biblical era was the golden period in the history of midwifery in which women empowerment had an active role in framing some concepts of professionalism in midwifery” (2013, p.115). Although nurse

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