Midwifery's Renaissance
(Page 4 of 6)
Utne Reader March / April 2007
Marsden Wagner, Born in the USA
Taking on the role of facilitator, midwives typically will reassure, calm, and encourage birthing women. Obstetricians, on the other hand, typically try to get the birth under their own control by overriding the natural processes with drugs and medical procedures and giving orders. The medical model and the midwifery model are essentially different ways of looking at women and birth. Doctors 'deliver' babies and believe that having a baby is something that happens to a woman. Midwives assist at birth and believe that giving birth is something that a woman does.
RELATED CONTENT
There’s a dark side to the recent trend in corporate repsonsiblity: It is giving conscientious inve...
The Education of Mary Robinson May 1, 2002 Issue By Julie Madsen M ary Robinson's announcement las...
The philosophical leader of the animal rights movement helped construct a legal framework around th...
A hundred years of gay rights from a woman who knows...
A new generation revives the ERA...
Midwives tend to believe that a woman giving birth needs to be the one making decisions about her birth experience. The woman giving birth needs to believe in her own body and feel responsible for her body, while at the same time letting go of the need to control what is happening, since she cannot.
Another fundamental difference between midwives and doctors is how they view pregnancy and birth. Midwives understand that pregnancy is not an illness. They typically call the women in their care 'clients,' not 'patients,' since they are not sick and are not getting medical treatment. Though midwives know what can go wrong during pregnancy and birth and know how to identify problems early and to cooperate with doctors in managing complications, their focus is on birth as a life-enhancing experience. Although they believe it is essential to have medical assistance available when it is needed, they are trained to go beyond medical care and empower women to achieve their goals for themselves and their babies. Midwives trust in women's bodies and their capacity to give birth successfully with little or no intervention in most cases.
Obstetricians, on the other hand, tend to focus on what can go wrong during pregnancy and birth. All doctors have been trained to look for trouble (diagnose a problem) and decide what to do about it (decide on a treatment), and that is what comes naturally to obstetricians. In prenatal care they take the same approach, focusing on what can go wrong.
Another important difference between midwife-attended low-risk birth and obstetrician-attended low-risk birth is the quality of the experience for the woman. Many surveys have shown that women who have midwives as their attendants have far higher levels of satisfaction with their birth experience than women who have obstetricians attending their births. This is not hard to understand. Midwives give great attention to building close relationships with their clients and their clients' families.
Generally speaking, midwives are direct, open, and honest in their dealings with clients and take an egalitarian, intimate, woman-to-woman approach. Midwives do not guarantee a good outcome, and their honesty about their role and its limitations contributes to the level of satisfaction women feel with their services. On the other hand, in a doctor-patient relationship, there is no egalitarian tradition. Rather, the doctor's superior knowledge and status are for the most part unquestioned and there is a belief (or hope) that the doctor can perform miracles.
Page:
<< Previous 1 |
2 |
3 | 4 |
5 |
6 |
Next >>