MIDWIVES IN AMERICA

Outcomes of planned home births with certified professional midwives: large prospective study in North America.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the safety of home births in North America involving direct entry midwives, in jurisdictions where the practice is not well integrated into the healthcare system. DESIGN Prospective cohort study. SETTING All home births involving certified professional midwives across the United States (98% of cohort) and Canada, 2000. PARTICIPANTS All 5418 women expecting to deliver...

Midwives for midwives. Protecting the sacred circle.

María Catalina lives in a small village called Áto, about an hour and a half walk from Antigua, a colonial city in the Guatemalan highlands. The region is surrounded by volcanoes, and is an agricultural center for the production of corn and coffee. Catalina looks much older than her 38 years, and is plagued by chronic health problems stemming from a life of poverty and hard physical labor. She ...

Midwives for Midwives in Guatemala: Weaving Traditional and Professional Midwifery

Midwives' Midwifery

pillow. Her countenance indicated exhaustion, and she did not wish to be disturbed ; preferring, as she said, death to any further interference. Her friends stated that labour pains set in four days before, and that the membranes broke and the waters were discharged thirty hours previous to my visit. The pains having been slight, and the labour having made no advance, midwives of repute were se...

[The role of midwives and nurse-midwives in promoting safe motherhood in Brazil].

Brazil needs to improve maternal and perinatal health care, given the high rates of morbidity, mortality and cesarean sections, the medicalization process of the female body and the violation of the sexual and reproductive rights of women during pregnancy and childbirth. Based on the contribution of international researchers and agencies to address these issues, the scope of this text is to pro...