Empowerment: Why Women Need to Reclaim Birth

The human race survived long before there were ever OBGYN's and the medical establishment. In fact, the advent of OBYN's is a relatively new concept, that came about in the late 1800's. Before then, only women attended births and supported laboring mother's. These women were called "Midwives" which means "with mother" and they went about their duties with pride, tenderness, and love. Birth was a sacred process, respected by all women, but not feared.

In the late 1800's, women did not have much status in America. They were not permitted to vote, work, or have many of the same rights as the men in society. Women were thought to be weak, incapable, and ignorant. They were not believed to be capable of making good decisions, and therefore could not be in charge of anything - including birth. There were some rural midwives that survived this time, but training and education for them was scarce, and there was no united group or organization for them. As women were told over and over about all of their shortcomings, they began to accept it as truth, and turned their laboring selves over to men. The mother/infant morbidity rate soared and birthing women were no longer treated with respect and tenderness. A horrible time in American history began for pregnant mothers.

During this time, through experimentation, doctors learned many new things about the pregnant woman, her body, her baby, and the processes of labor. Although some of these discoveries were important, many of them added to more interventions on the part of the doctors during the birthing process. C-sections became more safe in this time than previously and so were more widely - and sometimes unnecessarily - used. Because there was no educational system for the rural midwives, they did not have access to many of the new discoveries that the doctors had access to, and their quality of care started taking on a second rate feeling. This is where the assumption that midwives are for second class citizens who cannot afford doctors comes from.

Then a movement came from overseas. The Nurse-Midwifery movement had taken root overseas and brought about wonderful changes for birthing women there. The infant/mother morbidity rate was significantly decreased in comparison to OBGYN births, and women began, once again, reclaiming the role that had been wrongly taken from them. When the first Nurse-Midwives came to America, they took root in the west. There was a dramatic decrease in infant/mother morbidity as compared to the OBGYN's in America at the time. The midwives saw around .1% per one thousand births, where as the OBGYN's saw a morbidity rate averaged at 3.6% per thousand births over the same time period. Women began seeking out the midwives.

In the mid 20th century national organizations for midwives were formed. There were specific guidelines for both Nurse-midwives and Direct-Entry midwives, and midwifery began to flourish. The OBGYN's of the time (and even currently) saw this as a threat to their livelyhood, as they realized that many women sought out midwives to have the peaceful, loving birth of the women of the past. There was also a massive influx of doctors in the medical field, and not enough patients to go around, making each patient that much more desirable for OBGYN's. Losing patients to each other, they did not need midwives to contend with as well. Many states made strict guidelines for Nurse-Midwives, and some states made DEM and lay midwives illegal.

Although midwives have consistently proven that their ways of helping the birthing woman are safer, and more desirable, with mortality rates significantly lower in all aspects of midwifery (from homebirthing, to birth center birthing, to midwives in hospitals) and c-section rates almost nil, midwives still struggle, to this day, with politicians to fight for the right to practice midwifery in their home state. In a time when women are being given c-sections for unnecessary reasons, and many injustices are occuring to pregnant and laboring women, all women need to speak out and protest the poor treatment of our pregnant and laboring sisters. All women as a collective need to reclaim birth and become the empowered women we once were. Each woman can start by supporting the local midwives, joining local birth networks, and speaking out against the autrocities happening to our pregnant sisters to our congressmen and women. We need to reclaim what is rightly ours and stand together.