Midwifery

Attendance at birth has been suggested to be essential in facilitating mother–child survival as the physiology of birth changed during human evolutionary history. Midwife, an AnglōSaxon term meaning “with woman,” aptly describes the role that women have long assumed as birth attendants. The anthropology of midwifery is the study of nonphysician primary birth attendants within and across cultures. Birth attendants are not always specialists, and not all cultures have specifically delineated roles for birth attendants. Thus, our definition of the anthropology of midwifery is expansive enough to include a wide range of biomedical and nonbiomedical, as well as formal and informal, birth attendants. Important elements of study in this field include the definition, education, practices, identities, and knowledge systems of midwives. Much anthropological research is directed toward the documentation and critique of ongoing international battles over the definition and social roles of midwives, especially as viable alternatives to the overmedicalization of birth.

There is a sharp distinction made in international literature and discourse between “professional midwives” and “traditional birth attendants” (TBAs). Health authorities tend to accept this distinction, whereas anthropologists tend to reject or contest it, examining the social roles of definitions as tools of power to determine insiders and outsiders. The international definition of a midwife was created by the International Confederation of Midwives and formally accepted by other international organizations, including the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Federation of Gynecologists and Obstetricians:

Those who meet this definition may be fully incorporated into health care systems; those who do not (the TBAs) may suffer multiple forms of discrimination. Since 1992, the WHO has defined the TBA as “a person who assists the mother during childbirth and initially acquired her skills by delivering babies herself or through apprenticeship to other traditional birth attendants,” distinguishing trained TBAs as having “received a short course of training through the modern health care sector to upgrade her skills.” The WHO suggests that TBAs are stopgap measures until more “qualified” personnel are available.

...