It is usual, in the framework of modern obstetrics, to shorten the duration of pregnancy through such interventions as labor induction or pre-labor cesarean. This is the reason why we’ll summarize the conclusions of recent studies. Their common point is to suggest that the importance of the short phase of “physiological birth preparation” is underestimated (Odent 2019).

 Read more…. Interventions That Interfere with the Length of Pregnancy

On Christmas Day a few years ago, I was having dinner with my family but I was on-call for an expectant mama—and I got the call letting me know her labor had started. I hopped in my car and drove northeast from the San Francisco Bay Area toward Sacramento, taking the appropriate exits from I-80 to the backroads that led to a nice suburban house where the kind-hearted couple were waiting for me to arrive.

 Read more…. Narrative Medicine and the Renewal of Midwifery Practice in the Twenty-first Century

To have a meaningful discussion about the future of midwifery education, we must consider the question: what is a midwife? To understand what a midwife is we need to ask ourselves some other important questions. First, who created midwifery? Second, what do midwives do? And finally, the most important question of all: exactly who “owns” human reproduction? Only after we answer these important questions can we start to analyze and develop a plan to educate the midwives of the future and begin to truly address the huge crisis we have in maternal and child health care today.

 Read more…. The Future of Midwifery Education

The Village Midwife is not lost. Her blood runs thick in our veins. Our great-great-grandmothers knew her ways. Many of them were her.

 Read more…. The Village Midwife Yesterday—Today—Tomorrow