PURPOSE:
To create international support for midwifery as a profession, independent of Biomedical management

DISCUSSION:
A lifetime ago I coined the phrase ‘midwifery model’ as distinguished from the ‘medical model’ of birth. (Rothman, IN LABOR 1981) Midwifery care was not just ‘less interference’ or ‘fewer medications.’ There was a profound difference in what midwives and physicians saw as happening in pregnancy and birth. Physicians used the patriarchal understanding that babies were grown from seeds planted in women; midwives saw pregnancy as a part of a woman’s body becoming a separate being. Physicians saw themselves extracting a precious but parasitic being from a maternal barrier; midwives helped women give birth. Humans are social animals, and tasks that require experience are valued within communities. Not everyone has to be a baker or a pickler – we teach and then share. Midwifery is comparable (Rothman, BUN IN THE OVEN 2016) – unlike cats for example, a birthing woman cannot reach her own emerging baby, pull at a cord with her teeth. Midwives step in, with experience at complicated births, and then share that knowledge, pass it on. Midwifery knowledge is increasingly disvalued as Biomedicine takes over Rothman BIOMEDICAL EMPIRE, 2021) and midwifery is moved into medical schools, i.e., in Germany; and Nurse Practitioner doctoral programs, i.e., in the US. As birth has largely moved into hospitals, midwives become workers in that system, rising in status. The care, personal attention is still appreciated – but moves down in status as caring work, traditionally women’s work, always does. Enter ‘doulas.

EVIDENCE WHERE RELEVANT:
Further references available upon request from author's published work.

KEY MESSAGE:
The midwifery model is being lost as midwifery rises in status as a biomedical profession; we must retain and value midwifery knowledge and care. Poster session 2 (Group A)