A Brief History of the Midwife
As hard as it may to believe it, childbirth wasn’t always the domain of hospitals and OB/GYNs. As recently as a couple of generations ago, people wouldn’t enlist the help of a doctor, but rather that of a midwife. New York City began licensing midwives in the year 1716, and even in those pre-Industrial Revolution days (when bloodletting was all the rage), the birth success rate ran at about 95 percent.
Colonial Concerns
In Colonial America, men did not even attend the birthing of their children (it was considered indecent to do so). After the American Revolution, and especially after the War of 1812, doctors and hospitals began to proliferate across the country. Families that were well-off adopted the viewpoint that midwives simply didn’t have the prerequisite obstetric knowledge, and increasingly trusted doctors in childbirth. In 1817, a forward-thinking Washington, D.C. doctor named Thomas Ewell sought federal funds for a hospital-affiliated school to offer formal training to midwives. The request was denied, and his vision of such a training center was never fulfilled.
Biblical Proportions
Midwives nevertheless have been celebrated by civilizations going back as far as ancient Greece and Rome – indeed, the mother of Socrates was believed to have been a midwife. The practice of midwifery is even mentioned in the Bible (in Exodus and in Genesis), and was instrumental in the survival of the human species through the misery of the Dark Ages.
In this strange, modern world, childbirth has gone all over the map – some people have even discussed having their child born in the presence of (gulp) dolphins. Birthing videos are now a part of many family libraries, and beginning in the 1980s, families once again began opting for “natural” or at-home childbirth, assisted by a midwife, rather than going through the usual hospital procedures. Medical experts may cringe at such a choice, but the midwife remains prominent in the living-room-turned-delivery-room.
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