According to historians such as Doreen Evenden, research shows that “the seventeenth century [English] midwives were often women of considerable social status, both central figures in local women’s culture and representatives of the respectable part of the local population…the midwife was a ‘specialist’ whose expertise was concentrated in the area of child delivery.” (Evenden, 42, 170).”

Historical views of midwifery also illustrate a give-and-take relationship between a midwife and her community as well as a midwives’ expertise in the birthing realm. Whatever the midwives social status, all were trained through a system of apprenticeship under the supervision of an expert midwife. “A new archivally-based study of seventeenth-century London midwives has demonstrated that midwives were better trained through an ‘unofficial’ system of apprenticeship served under the supervision of senior midwives than has previously been assumed.” (Evenden, 9)

The midwife also had basic knowledge of common diseases and gynecological conditions (Evenden, 171) which, arguably, made them a threat to the economic prosperity of university trained medical men and experts in the contemporary medical profession. In addition to research from Doreen Evenden that supports midwives as experts in the medical field, the trial records themselves from seventeenth century London also demonstrate that midwives were medical experts who testified in court trails “about various forms of sexual impropriety,” (Evenden, 171), which points to the high level of respect that a community gave their midwives.

Midwifery manuals published by seventeenth century midwives themselves also act as primary sources on the subject of midwives’ involvement in birth and demonstrate seventeenth century midwives to be women with an expert knowledge in anatomy and birth during the seventeenth century.

Maternal mortality is mainly a tragedy of the “third world”. There are half a million deaths world-wide due to cause’s related to pregnancy and birth and [approximately] 99% of them occur in undeveloped countries. (Omran, 91) In saying this, it is not denying the fact that over-medicalized births can be a tragedy of the “developed world” or that maternal and infant death sadly happens in every country, it is just not the focus of this particular post. Instead the focus here is that in developing countries many women and babies are dieing from complications which could be avoided with adequate maternity & birth care. Arguably, in order to improve the maternity care for women in the under-developed parts of the world as well as lower the mortality rate among these women, a redistribution of the global wealth as well as equitable resource allocation based on the individual needs of particular communities is required. Furthermore, issues of race and class as well as patriarchy need to be addressed in order to solve the inequality experienced by women globally. Continue reading →