Midwifery Quotes

Today, the lay midwife is a response to a growing home-birth movement. In my own community most physicians have decided to withhold prenatal care from the home-birther. This is judgmental and vindictive. These doctors have decided that home birth is not safe, and by withholding prenatal care they are doing their best to make sure it is unsafe. Often it is lay midwives who step forward to fill the void and help eliminate the unnecessary dangers of home birth. They are essential for screening out women who really should not have a home birth. For considerably less money than a physician charges, they spend many more hours with a pregnant woman before, during, and after the birth. and in most places they courageously face the opposition of the established medical community. ~ Susan McCutcheon

And thus, through the courage and great skill in obstetrics of Queequeg, the deliverance, or rather, delivery of Tashtego, was successfully accomplished, in the teeth, too, of the most untoward and apparently hopeless impediments; which is a lesson by no means to be forgotten. Midwifery should be taught in the same course with fencing and boxing, riding and rowing. ~ Herman Melville

$13 to $20 billion a year could be saved in health care costs by demedicalizing childbirth, developing midwifery, and encouraging breastfeeding. ~ Frank A. Oski

She was not as stupid as some I have had, and better company, but still perhaps her going was for the best. She was not what I needed."
"Because I failed," whispered Alyce in the shadows.
"Because she gave up," continued the midwife. "I need an apprentice who can do what I tell her, take what I give her, who can try and risk and fail and try again and not give up ... ~ Karen Cushman

If we want to find safe alternatives to obstetrics, we must rediscover midwifery. To rediscover midwifery is the same as giving back childbirth to women. And imagine the future if surgical teams were at the service of the midwives and the women instead of controlling them. ~ Michel Odent

The one seeks a midwife to deliver his thoughts, the other, someone to assist: thus a good conversation comes into being. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Stories teach us in ways we can remember. They teach us that each woman responds to birth in her unique way and how very wide-ranging that way can be. Sometimes they teach us about silly practices once widely held that were finally discarded. They teach us the occasional difference between accepted medical knowledge and the real bodily experiences that women have - including those that are never reported in medical textbooks nor admitted as possibilities in the medical world. They also demonstrate the mind/body connection in a way that medical studies cannot. Birth stories told by women who were active participants in giving birth often express a good deal of practical wisdom, inspiration, and information for other women. Positive stories shared by women who have had wonderful childbirth experiences are an irreplaceable way to transmit knowledge of a woman's true capacities in pregnancy and birth. ~ Ina May Gaskin

Abortion politics have distracted all sides from what is really essential: a major aid campaign to improve midwifery, prenatal care and emergency obstetric services in poor countries. ~ Nicholas D. Kristof

I dream that someday I will meet her and that thought brings tears to my eyes, still. I imagine her in my mind and I dream of that moment. ~ Julie Watson

So he's right?" Sophia said.

"From what I've read, yes. That was known back when you were...Never mind...Just...Technically he is right. Over."

"Ick," Sophia said. "I just...Maybe calling you wasn't the best choice, Da. Over."

"I'm glad you did. We never get to talk. But, I've got to get this straight. This Walker guy thinks she got pregnant from involuntary emissions on the damp bottom of a lifeboat? Over."

"Yes," Sophia said. "She's...virgo intacta. And they're both...Like Olga said, only virgins could be that incoherent about it. Over."

"You're not particularly incoherent about it, over."

"You've been talking to us about it since we were kids in one way or another," Sophia said. "And let's just say this cruise has been a real eye-opener."

"I'd say sorry but I didn't start the Plague. Okay, Walker. What's his medical background, over?"

"I'm not sure," Sophia said. "He said he took a course once that included advanced midwifery. I'm not even sure what that means except it has to do with delivering babies."

"God knows we're going to need it. Okay, I'm going to get the CDC to call you and see if they can confirm what you've said. I'm also going to pass this around in the official news bulletin. Over."

"Uh, isn't this a little private, Da?" Sophia asked.

"Well, it's that or every little old lady on the Boadicea will be beating him with their canes. Squadron, ~ John Ringo

Whoever heard of a midwife as a literary heroine? Yet midwifery is the very stuff of drama. Every child is conceived either in love or lust, is born in pain, followed by joy or sometimes remorse. A midwife is in the thick of it, she sees it all. ~ Jennifer Worth

The midwife considers the miracle of childbirth as normal, and leaves it alone unless there's trouble. The obstetrician normally sees childbirth as trouble; if he leaves it alone, it's a miracle. ~ Sheila Stubbs

There is no other organ quite like the uterus. If men had such an organ they would brag about it. So should we ~ Ina May Gaskin

Ina May Gaskin is the most important person in maternity care in North America, bar none. ~ Marsden Wagner

And how are . . . Mummy's stitches? This, I was slightly thrown by. I knew my mother had had forty-two stitches after the birth, and that she was washing the stitches every day with warm salty water - she made me go and get the warm salty water - but she hadn't passed on much more information about her vagina than that. I knew from Spiritual Midwifery (Ina May Gaskin, Book Pub Co., 1977) that postpartum women were often loath to share the details of their births with the virgins of the tribe, so I wasn't unduly concerned about it. Still, I did have some info, and I was going to share it. ~ Caitlin Moran

The techno-medical model of maternity care, unlike the midwifery model, is comparatively new on the world scene, having existed for barely two centuries. This male-derived framework for care is a product of the industrial revolution. As anthropologist Robbie Davis-Floyd has described in detail, underlying the technocratic mode of care of our own time is an assumption that the human body is a machine and that the female body in particular is a machine full of shortcomings and defects. Pregnancy and labor are seen as illnesses, which, in order not to be harmful to mother or baby, must be treated with drugs and medical equipment. Within the techno-medical model of birth, some medical intervention is considered necessary for every birth, and birth is safe only in retrospect. ~ Ina May Gaskin

Many midwives work as employees in large hospital practices, where the techno-medical model of care is still the rule. In practices like these, midwives are used to attract women who desire midwifery care, but they may in fact be under constant pressure to practice within the techno-medical mode. ~ Ina May Gaskin