Controversies in Childbirth
The United States still has one of the highest infant mortality rates as reported by CIA World Fact Book “United States 6.06 per 1,000” (Field Listing, 2008 p.1), as compared to other high income countries who employ midwives as mainstream for low-risk pregnant women. Research shows that midwife-attended births have fewer interventions, lower c-section rates, and offer more personal care for pregnant women. The problem with the current form of obstetrical care in the United States is the uncritical acceptance of an unscientific method: the routine use of interventionist obstetrics for healthy women with normal pregnancies in contrast to a midwifery model of care for pregnant women. Should the medical establishment and insurance companies accept midwifery, as a whole, for low-risk pregnant women? In order to answer this question one must examine the history of midwives, how midwives got outlawed out of mainstream medical care and the fight to regain midwifery in the United States today.
The history of midwifery dates back to the beginning of time, although many things have changed over the past century with how women give birth. “The word midwife comes from the Middle English, meaning “with woman,” as told by Ms. McGinnis, (1998,B19) and in French, the term midwife is Sage-Femme meaning “Wise Woman.” Childbirth has always been one of the most basic human experiences. The first instance of a recorded midwife is in the Bible, “It came to pass when she had such difficulty giving birth, that the midwife said to her, "Do not be afraid, for this one, too, is a son for you" (Gen. 35:17). The 1858 Medical Act, stated who was able to practice, although barred women from institutions that would allow them the sa...
... middle of paper ...
...ed from EBSCOhost.
Magenis, M. (Jan 10, 1998). Mothering theMother Eases Labour Pains. The Times, p.B19(1). Retrieved July 02, 2011, from Health Reference Center Academic via Gale:
http://find.galegroup.com.ezproxy.bpl.org/gtx/start.do?prodId=HRCA&userGroupName=mlin_b_bpublic
Percival, R. (1979). Management of Normal Labour. Practitioner, 1221
Reaves, J. (2010, September 24). Use of Midwives Rises, Challenging the State to Respond. New York Times. p. 23A. Retrieved from EBSCOhost..
Recent Trends in Vital Statistics. (2009). World Almanac & Book of Facts, 1738. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
River and Mountain. (2010). Frequently asked Questions [River and Mountain]. Retrieved July 2, 2011, from http://www.riverandmountain.net/faq.shtml
Stephen, H. (2008, January 9). American Motherhood and the Question of Home Birth. New York Times. p. 8. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
Contrary to having doctors deliver babies today, midwives were called upon to deliver babies during the eighteenth century. There were many more midwives than there were doctors during that time. In addition, Martha served as a midwife, nurse, physician, mortician, pharmacist, and attentive wife simultaneously (40). Aside from being able to deliver babies, midwives were also highly experienced in medical care—they tended to wounds, diagnosed illnesses, and made medicine. Midwives were more accessible and abundant when compared to doctors—they did not require any formal training or education. When the medical field was underdeveloped, the midwives were the leading resource when it was related to medical conflicts.
Before I watched 'A Midwife's Tale', a movie created from the diary found by Laurel Ulrich chronicling the life of a woman named Martha Ballard, I thought the women in these times were just housewives and nothing else. I pictured them doing the cleaning and the cooking for their husbands and not being very smart because of the lack of education or them being unable to work. My view on the subject changed however when I watched this specific woman's life and her work.
The Grand Midwives, a term we now wish to honor them with, are still among us. Some are with us in spirit, and a few are still with us today. Two midwives who told their stories before passing on were, Onnie Lee Logan in her book, Motherwit, An Alabama Midwife 's Story, and Why Not Me ? The story of Gladys Milton, Midwife by Wendy Bovard and Gladys Milton. One midwife of a few still living is Margaret Charles Smith from Alabama. You can read her story in her book titled Listen To Me Good: The Story of an Alabama Midwife. These three midwives have shared their story with us so that we can understand our history in Midwifery. Midwives can be found throughout the United States and across the sea. In many states Midwifery is still unlawful. Some states have managed to pass laws that have made midwifery a free state to practice in. Those who practice laid midwifery in restricted states do so because they believe that families ought to have the right to birth where they want and to be attended by whom they choose. They believe in freedom and exercise this belief as Harriet Tubman once did. Many midwives today believe they were called to serve the pregnant mother as the midwives of yesterday. They serve with pride and dignity, something that no man will ever take away. As long as there are mothers upon the stool, there will always be
Johnson, K. C., & Daviss, B. A. (2005). Outcomes of planned home births with certified professional midwives: large prospective study in North America. Bmj, 330(7505), 1416.
In the Early 1900s, health care was very limited to rural women. Adequate care and practice for childbirth was never heard of and often times performed by family members or even neighbors. It was said to be lucky if a child lived through the birth and even luckier if the child lived through their first birthday.
How do you feel about home birth? When it comes to most peoples minds they most likely think that is just horde, and that they world never even think of baring there child that way. After reading this I hope that you will change you mind, or reconsider it. home birth is better then the hospital in many ways, and i'm going to share with you many of those ways with you. In the articular ( Midwifes alliance) is says, (Journal of Midwifery & Women’s Health (JMWH), a landmark study** confirms that among low-risk women, planned home births result in low rates of interventions without an increase in adverse outcomes for mothers and babies. This study, which examines nearly 17,000 courses of midwife-led care, is the largest analysis of planned home birth in the U.S. ever published.The
The term "reproductive rights" has become synonymous with abortion rights, birth control access, and issues surrounding reproductive technologies, yet the struggle for a woman's right to choose when and how to become pregnant often overshadows a woman's right to choose where and how to give birth. The lack of feminist discourse and activism surrounding issues of childbirth may attest to the hegemony in the modern American birth ritual of increasing medical intervention from obstetricians in hospital settings. There are currently several movements to challenge this dominant birth model--prepared childbirth advocates offer education classes and natural childbirth advocates lobby for the rights of midwives and home births--but I refrain from giving either of these movements a feminist label because neither are invested in challenging prevailing gender ideology or the equation of woman with motherhood. This paper will argue that a feminist discourse of childbirth is necessary by using a Foucauldian analysis to chart the current web of power and knowledge in the American hospital delivery room and how it works to deny agency to women in labor, alienating them from their experience. Recognizing that power and knowledge operate on a myriad of levels and tactics, including counter-tactics, I will not limit my focus to the dominant discourse of medical experts, but also explore what I call counter discourses of childbirth, particularly from the prepared childbirth and natural childbirth advocates. Within this discussion, I hope to offer suggestions on a feminist ethic of childbirth that reaffirms women's autonomy during labor, but does not limit them to prevailing codes o...
In the early nineteen-hundreds, the American Medical Lobby was almost successful in stopping out its competition: Midwives. The Journal of the American Medical Association (AMA) published an article in 1912 “The Midwife Problem”, which analyzed a survey given to obstetricians of their thoughts on midwives were. The article states “a large proportion admit that the average practitioner, through his lack of preparation for the practice of obstetrics, may do his patients as much harm as the much-maligned midwife.” This statement demonstrates the discrimination of skilled midwives. Comparing a trained midwife to a unprepared obstetrician. “doctors are the main reason women don’t have midwives.” says Cristen Pascucci the Author of “ Why Are We Asking Doctors if Women Should Have Midwives?”. Midwife led care is the norm all around the world for mothers and babies, so why not in the United States you may ask. Many may say that the United States has a dysfunctional system of maternity care, leading to poor outcomes for mothers and babies. After the 1912 “Midwife Problem”, prenatal mortality has been higher in hospitals and lower in at home births. (Pascucci, 2014) The doctors employed by the AMA in 1912, failed to take down the glorious, strong willed midwives. Even after 100 years of scrutiny, midwives are still going strong and proving their ways of doing things are
Pro-life rhetoric is reshaping history to make room for a new class of citizens. The members of this new identity group are called "fetuses," and their legal protection is crucial to the heritage of and future of America. Lauren Berlant, in her essay, "America, 'Fat,' the Fetus"; describes the pro-life motivation to present fetuses as a class of citizens, and thereby add "a new group of "persons" to "the people"" (Berlant, 98). To do so, pro-lifers exploit the current convergence of public and private spheres. In the intimate public sphere, citizens are defined not by a common civic duty, but instead, by a shared morality. In this crisis of citizenship, with no one quite sure of where s/he stands in relation to the norm, and everyone forced into an identity politics, the fetus represents the ideal citizen - utterly vulnerable and in need of government protection. Pro-life arguments describing fetuses as the ultimately silenced, victimized minority capitalize on the shifting meanings of citizenship to find a place for the fetus within it.
However, it was evident that the impetuous confidence women had in male physicians was also the result of the influential power and superior role the male gender had. Sadly, transitioning care from homes to medical centers and allowing the transfer of care from wise women who had gained their knowledge through experience and the sharing of information from previous generations to obstetricians who were merely book trained (Cassidy, 2007, p.132), ultimately suppressed women’s power, strength, and freedom by not allowing them to direct their own care. Unlike the midwives, who encouraged women to remain in their homes and preform traditions such as making groaning cakes as Mabel wished (McKay, 2009, p. 55), physician’s striped woman from their ability to be in control. In fact, anesthesia, referred to as “twilight sleep” in The Birth House, was even noted to be administered to cause laboring women to have no memories regarding the birthing process which often included dangerous interventions and the use of new surgical instruments such as forceps (McKay, 2009, p. 103). The lack of liberty women had to voice their own wishes and make their own decisions is disheartening and almost surprising due to the freedom I have experienced throughout my
In this article Devane et al. compared midwife led care of pregnant women with other models of care such as medical doctors being the primary care provider. The aim of the study is to establish wether there are significant differences in the outcomes between a midwives being the primary carer compared to other models. The authors used pregnant women who were randomly allocated to either midwife led care or other models of care during the ante and postnatally as well as during labour. This article is useful to my research topic as Devane et al. concluded that a midwife as a primary carer resulted in benefits for mothers and babies with no identified adverse affects. A limitation of this study is the exclusion of pregnant women with maternal disease and women with substance abuse in some trials. Therefore, the findings of this study should not be applied to pregnant women with substantial medical or obstetric complications. The authors suggest that more research is needed in midwife led models of care over a longer postpartum period.
Pairman,S., Tracy, S., Thorogood, C., & Pincombe, J. (2013). Theoretical frameworks for midwifery practice. Midwifery: Preparation for practice.(2nd ed, pp. 313-336). Chatswood, N.S.W. : Elsevier Australia
Chances are that terms such as “midwife” and “home birth” conjure up for you old-fashioned images of childbirth. These words may bring to mind scenes from old movies, but you’re not likely to associate them with the modern image of childbirth. Do you know anyone who has had a midwife-assisted birth or a home birth? Would you consider one?
[9] Shanley, M.L, Surrogate Mothering and Women's Freedom: A Critique of Contracts for Human Reproduction, (Politics and the Human Body) editors-Elshtain, J.B, and Cloyd J.T1995, Vanderbitt University Press, Tennessee back
Riska, E. (1993). Gender, Work, and Medicine: Women and the Medical Division of Labour. London: Sage Publications.