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Midwifery is the health science and health profession that deals with pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period, in addition to the sexual and reproductive health of women throughout their lives. In many countries, midwifery is a medical profession. A professional in midwifery is known as a midwife.
Obstetrics is the field of study concentrated on pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum period. As a medical specialty, obstetrics is combined with gynecology under the discipline known as obstetrics and gynecology (OB/GYN), which is a surgical field.
A home birth is a birth that takes place in a residence rather than in a hospital or a birthing center. They may be attended by a midwife, or lay attendant with experience in managing home births. Home birth was, until the advent of modern medicine, the de facto method of delivery. The term was coined in the middle of the 19th century as births began to take place in hospitals.
William Smellie was a Scottish obstetrician and medical instructor who practiced and taught primarily in London. One of the first prominent male midwives in Britain, he designed an improved version of the obstetrical forceps, established safer delivery practices, and through his teaching and writing helped make obstetrics more scientifically based. He is often called the "father of British midwifery".
Ina May Gaskin is an American midwife who has been described as "the mother of authentic midwifery." She helped found the self-sustaining community, The Farm, with her husband Stephen Gaskin in 1971 where she markedly launched her career in midwifery. She is known for the Gaskin Maneuver, has written several books on midwifery and childbirth, and continues to educate society through lectures and conferences and spread her message of natural, old-age inspired, fearless childbirth.
The General Medical Council (GMC) is a public body that maintains the official register of medical practitioners within the United Kingdom. Its chief responsibility is to "protect, promote and maintain the health and safety of the public" by controlling entry to the register, and suspending or removing members when necessary. It also sets the standards for medical schools in the UK. Membership of the register confers substantial privileges under Part VI of the Medical Act 1983. It is a criminal offence to make a false claim of membership. The GMC is supported by fees paid by its members, and it became a registered charity in 2001.
Queen Charlotte's and Chelsea Hospital is one of the oldest maternity hospitals in Europe, founded in 1739 in London. Until October 2000, it occupied a site at 339–351 Goldhawk Road, Hammersmith, but is now located between East Acton and White City, adjacent to the Hammersmith Hospital. It is managed by the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust.
The Association of Radical Midwives (ARM) is a UK organisation for midwives, doulas, mothers, and anyone concerned with the health of maternity services.
A birth attendant, also known as skilled birth attendant, is a health professional who provides basic and emergency care to women and their newborns during pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum period. A birth attendant, who may be a midwife, physician, obstetrician, or nurse, is trained to be present at ("attend") childbirth, whether the delivery takes place in a health care institution or at home, to recognize and respond appropriately to medical complications, and to implement interventions to help prevent them in the first place, including through prenatal care. Different birth attendants are able to provide different levels of care.
Julia Frances Cumberlege, Baroness Cumberlege, is a British Conservative Party politician and businesswoman. She was created a life peer on 18 May 1990 as Baroness Cumberlege, of Newick in the County of East Sussex.
Ruth Watson Lubic, CNM, EdD, FAAN, FACNM, is an American nurse-midwife and applied anthropologist who pioneered the role of nurse-midwives as primary care providers for women, particularly in maternity care. Lubic is considered to be one of the leaders of the nurse-midwifery movement in the United States.
Annie McCall was a British medical doctor and was a significant contributor to the modern practice of midwifery.
Midwives in the United States assist childbearing women during pregnancy, labor and birth, and the postpartum period. Some midwives also provide primary care for women including well-woman exams, health promotion, and disease prevention, family planning options, and care for common gynecological concerns. Before the turn of the 20th century, traditional midwives were informally trained and helped deliver almost all births. Today, midwives are professionals who must undergo formal training. Midwives in the United States formed the Midwifery Education, Regulation, and Association task force to establish a framework for midwifery.
Mary Francis Hill Coley was an American lay midwife who ran a successful business providing a range of birth services and who starred in a critically acclaimed documentary film used to train midwives and doctors. Her competence projected an image of black midwives as the face of an internationally esteemed medical profession, while working within the context of deep social and economic inequality in health care provided to African Americans. Her life story and work exist in the context of Southern granny midwives who served birthing women outside of hospitals.
Dame Caroline Jan MacEwen, known as Carrie MacEwen, is a British ophthalmology consultant who has served as the chair of the General Medical Council (GMC) since May 2022. She was previously acting chair of the GMC between August 2021 and May 2022, the chair of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges between 2017 and 2020 and the president of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists (RCOphth) between 2014 and 2017.
A midwife is a health professional who cares for mothers and newborns around childbirth, a specialization known as midwifery.
Margaret Charles Smith was an African-American midwife, who became known for her extraordinary skill over a long career, spanning over thirty years. Despite working primarily in rural areas with women who were often in poor health, she lost very few of the more than 3000 babies she delivered, and none of the mothers in childbirth. In 1949, she became one of the first official midwives in Green County, Alabama, and she was still practicing in 1976, when the state passed a law outlawing traditional midwifery. In the 1990s, she cowrote a book about her career, Listen to Me Good: The Life Story of an Alabama Midwife, and in 2010 she was inducted into the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame.
Midwives in South Africa are nurses who focus on the care of pregnant women and the delivery of babies. Midwives have the ability to work independently in cases of healthy pregnancies and problem-free deliveries; however, they can refer patients to gynaecologists or obstetricians when complications are diagnosed. The majority of pregnant women in South Africa use the public healthcare system, and most of this care is provided by midwives.
Charles Richard Whitfield FRCOG, FRCP(G) was a Northern Irish obstetrician and gynaecologist who was a pioneer of maternal-fetal (perinatal) medicine. His primary interest was in fetal medicine, a branch of obstetrics and gynaecology that focuses on the assessment of the development, growth and health of the baby in the womb. He was also an early proponent of subspecialisation within the fields of obstetrics and gynaecology, a practice that is common today.
Beverley Ann Lawrence Beech was a Welsh author, chair of the Association for Improvements in the Maternity Services (AIMS) from 1977 to 2017 and an active campaigner against the medicalisation of pregnancy and birth. She raised awareness of the harm that can be done to women in obstetrics during labour and the importance of women being aware of their rights so they can make their own decisions about the place and manner of the birth of their children. She also counselled for a more positive attitude towards home births.
References
- ↑ Robinson, Jean. A Patient Voice at the GMC: A Lay Member's View of the General Medical Council. ISBN 1-871715-00-8. OCLC 59848301.
- 1 2 3 "Maternal Care: A Witness Seminar held at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine" (PDF). Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine . Retrieved 5 May 2022.
- ↑ Davies, Mark. Medical Self-Regulation: Crisis and Change. Routledge. ISBN 9781351918732. OCLC 965710649.
- ↑ "Wordpower". BBC Genome Project . Retrieved 5 May 2022.
- ↑ "BBC Radio 4 schedule: 1 August 1974". BBC Genome Project . Retrieved 5 May 2022.
- 1 2 "Midwives 'losing' breech birth skills". BBC News . 9 June 2002. Retrieved 5 May 2022.
- ↑ Hilpern, Kate (28 May 2003). "Hard labour". The Guardian . Retrieved 5 May 2022.