by Liz Sinclair

Created on: July 11, 2009

Midwives have been around as long as women have been having babies. Midwifery is, perhaps, truly the oldest profession in the world.

Today, there are three types of midwives practicing in America: the lay-midwife, or traditional midwife, who attends home births; the Certified Practicing Midwife, who has undergone accredited training in midwifery, or a lay-midwife who has served an apprenticeship, and passed tests to be licensed, who may work either in a birthing centre or attend home births; and the nurse-midwife, who holds a degree in nursing, as well as having midwifery training, and generally works in a hospital setting. This article will focus on the differences between a lay-midwife and a nurse-midwife.

The lay-midwife, or community midwife, is usually an older woman, who has given birth to several children herself, and who has become a midwife by being asked to attend at the births of friends and relatives. In this way, she has become a midwife through first-hand, direct experience, not through formal training or study. Often, a new lay-midwife will apprentice to a more senior midwife, and learn by watching.

A lay-midwife is usually a long-standing member of the community in which she practices, may have already known her patients for a long time, and holds their trust and respect. Younger women in the community may look up to her as a surrogate mother figure. As Robbie Davis-Floyd writes in Types of Midwifery Training: An Anthropological Overview, Midwives who trust birth profoundly tend to help women give birth more effectively: to trust a woman to give birth is to help her trust herself-this is part of the magic and the great strength of apprenticeship training.

The lay-midwife is also likely to use medicinal herbs, homeopathic remedies or other alternative treatments in her practice, and may offer general family care in her community, as well as maternity care. Her healing and birthing practices often contain a strong spiritual aspect. Many modern lay-midwives incorporate diverse forms of bodywork into their practice, such as massage, Bowen Techniques or Reiki.

By contrast, nurse-midwives are trained within the modern biomedical model of healthcare; the profession was created as a response to the near-disappearance of traditional midwives in America in the 1930's.

Historically, women in America who used midwives, and had home births, were less likely to die of complications than women who used doctors. However, despite this fact, by 1900, it became

• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next Page >>