Intuition and the emergence of midwifery as authoritative knowledge.

Intuition and the Emergence of Midwifery as Authoritative Knowledge ne of my first teachers in midwifery was a wonderful family doctor who told me that it was vital to pay attention to what mothers had to say about their babies. My doctor friend had not learned in medical school to place such value on mothers' intuitions; he had learned this from his mentor, an older physician whose practice he took over after a period of apprenticeship. "If a mother thinks there is anything wrong with the baby," he said, "believe her and check it out, even if you can't find anything wrong. She's almost always going to be right." A few months later I made a routine postpartum visit with a mother and her day-old son. Although the baby had been in good condition at birth and was nursing well, the mother told me something about him just wasn't right. We took the baby to a pediatrician for a more thorough examination, which revealed that he had an abnormal kidney condition requiring surgery. The mother's rational mind in this case had told her the baby was doing well, but she had not been able to shake the feeling that something was wrong. I had already learned from my own first birth a few years earlier that my intuition was sometimes more trustworthy than the accepted obstetrical knowledge about pregnancy and birth of the United States in the mid-1960s. I had gone through that pregnancy assuming that I would have no trouble giving birth because my body had never failed me before. There was almost no reading material available about birth at that time, so I had no idea that approximately one-third of American women, including most first-time mothers, had forceps deliveries, and that large episioto-mies were mandatory. My obstetrician told me I was to gain no more than 12 to 15 pounds during the entire pregnancy, so I dieted the whole time to avoid his scoldings. I was shocked when, two days before I went into labor, he told me that I must have spinal anesthesia and forceps for this birth because the baby, being my first, risked being brain-damaged if she was to be born without these interventions. It was the first time I had experienced a clash between my intuition about my own abilities and the prevailing knowledge of medical authorities, and I had no idea how to …