This volume is the first in a series which brings together studies of par ticular relevance to the care provided by midwives for childbearing women and their families. The series is intended primarily for midwives but we hope that other health professionals involved in the maternity services, as well as those who use the services, will also find the series interesting and useful. In undertaking this venture we have been fortunate in the support received from colleagues, friends and family. In particular we would like to thank the following: the editorial and production staff at Chapman and Hall in London for encouragement and advice; all the authors who have contributed to the series; colleagues at both the Nursing Research Unit, London University and the Department of Nursing Studies, Manchester University; and Paul and Rachel Robinson. This first volume is dedicated to Anne Bent, formerly Director of Education at the Royal College of Midwives and then Professional Officer for Midwifery at the United Kingdom Central Council for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting. Always conscious of the need for midwifery to become a research-based profession and for midwives to be aware of the importance of research, she has made a major contri bution to initiating and facilitating developments in both these respects.

This book provides an introduction to the sociological study of midwifery. The readings have been selected to highlight the interplay between midwifery and medicine, reflecting the medicalization of childbirth. It highlights the major themes in both a historical and a current context, as well as western and non-western societies. Two major themes underlie the organization of this book: that the conception of midwifery must be broadened to encompass a sociological perspective; and that the ongoing trend toward the medicalization of midwifery is crucial to an understanding of the historical, current, and future status of midwifery. By medicalization of childbirth and midwifery the author mean the increasing tendency for women to prefer a hospital delivery to a home delivery, the increasing trend toward the use of technology and clinical intervention in childbirth, and the determination of medical practitioners to confine the role played by midwives in pregnancy and childbirth, if any, to a purely subordinate one.

Midwives, Society and Childbirth is the first book to examine midwives' lives and work in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries on a national and international scale. Focusing on six countries from Europe, the approach is interdisciplinary with the studies written by a diverse team of social, medical and midwifery historians, sociologists, and those with experience in delivering childbirth services. Questioning for the first time many conventional historical assumptions, this book is fundamental to a better understanding of the effect on midwives of the unprecedented progress of science in general and obstetric science in particular from the late nineteenth century. The contributors challenge the traditional bleak picture of midwives' decline in the face of institutional obstetrics, medical technology, and the growing power of the medical profession, while stressing the importance of regional influences and locality. Dr Anne Marie Rafferty, Philadelphia, Dr Hilary Marland, Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, Dr Irvine Louden, Oxfordshire, Joan Mottram, Wellcome Unit for the History of Medic

This book recounts the journey of English midwives over six centuries and their battle for survival as a discrete profession, caring safely for childbearing women. With a particular focus on sixteenth and twentieth century midwifery practice, it includes new research which provides evidence of the identity, social status, lives, families and practice of contemporary midwives, and argues that the excellent care given by ecclesiastically licensed midwives in Tudor England was not bettered until the twentieth century. Relying on a wide variety of archived and personally collected material, this history illuminates the lives, words, professional experiences and outcomes of midwives. It explores the place of women in society, the development of midwifery education and regulation, the seventeenth century arrival of the accoucheurs and the continuing drive by obstetricians to medicalise birth. A fascinating and compelling read, it highlights the politics and challenges that have shaped midwifery practice today and encourages readers to be confident in midwifery-led care and giving women choices in childbirth. It is an important read for all those interested in childbirth.

The midwife: medical professional, friend in a woman's hour of greatest need, potent social and cultural symbol. Though the role of midwife has existed since time immemorial, it is only since the Victorian era that it has been a recognised and regulated profession. This book, from social history expert Susan Cohen, looks at midwifery in Britain from ancient times up to the present, paying particular attention to its incredible medical and social advances of the last 150 years. It is a fully illustrated tour that takes in fictional midwives such as Dickens' Sarey Gamp, the founding of the Royal College of Midwives in 1881, the Second World War, the forming of the NHS and the Central Midwives Board, and looks at the increasing medicalisation of childbirth and the countervailing trend for giving birth at home.

The latest volume in this series revisits topics particularly pertinent to the postnatal period. It makes a timely contribution to the literature in the context of recent developments in the organisation of midwifery care, the emphasis on woman-centred care and empowerment, and the reclaiming by midwives of the normal birth and puerperium.

This book deals with the central theme of freedom to practise midwifery in selected countries of the world. Each chapter has a separate author who has specific knowledge of the country for that chapter either as a citizen or researcher. The underpinning theme of this book is the philosophy of best midwifery practice - particularly that which is evidence-based. To clarify the meaning of the term, the book includes an initial chapter that discusses the aims and realities of achieving 'best practice' - wherever in the world a midwife may be and under whatever circumstances she may be working.

This book considers the broad range of support given to mothers including social, psychological and clinical. It also looks at the provision of this service and how different models have been set up internationally to fulfill this important function. It brings together the latest research findings, which examine the nature of care that is provided and consider what constitutes effective and efficient support. This aspect of care is considered a crucial part of the increasing and expanding role of the midwife. The ability of midwives to provide ongoing support throughout childbearing is one of the features of midwifery care which distinguishes it from other care providers. This is a feature which is common to the resurgence of midwifery throughout the world and therefore this text will have international appeal.

The NMC have produced standards of proficiency for pre registration midwifery education and those standards have been written in an “academic” language, for higher education institutions. Each student prior to being admitted to the profession must have achieved the proficiencies stated in the NMC publication. The purpose of this book is to provide students with material related to the standards of midwifery education. The students will be able to use the contents of this text and relate it to their own approved programme of midwifery study, as their programme of study would have had to comply with NMC’s requirements. It will help student midwives appreciate how their own programmes have been designed, and why they are required to study and understand some of the subjects they are, or will be studying.