Midwifery

Midwifery is a blanket term used to describe a number of different types of health practitioners, other than physicians, who provide prenatal care to expecting mothers, attend the birth of the infant and provide postnatal care to the mother and infant. Nurse-midwives (U.S.) may also provide gynecological care. Practitioners of midwifery are known as midwives, a term used in reference to both women and men (the term means "with the woman"). Most are independent practitioners who work with obstetricians when the need arises.They usually deal with normal births only but are trained to recognise and deal with deviation from the norm. If something abnormal is discovered during prenatal care, the client is sent to an obstetrician. Other midwives will deal with abnormal births, including breech birth.

Related topics

• childbirth
• doula
• nursing
• pregnancy

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Someone needs to write about the history of midwifery, the competition between mostly rural & female midwives and mostly urban & all male early medical doctors in the 18th and 19th centuries, and modern midwifery in countries other than the US or UK.

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