what is a midwife?
Midwife means “with woman.” She is a caretaker of families and their babies and the guardian of normal birth. Midwives have attended families at birth from the beginning of time. They were the sisters, grandmothers, wise women; those that truly knew how to be “with women.”
In more recent years we’ve moved away from midwife-attended birth, assuming that more technology meant better outcomes. We have found, in fact, that the opposite is true; statistics have shown that outcomes at midwife attended births are as good or better than OB attended births, with fewer medical interventions and all the risks related to intervening in a natural process. Midwives provide the skills and knowledge needed from the first pap smear, the childbearing cycle and through menopause. |