the.com/midwife
The first hands to ever touch you probably weren't a doctor's.
means A trained person who supports and assists a woman through pregnancy, labor, and birth.
from From Old English, but not the 'middle' you'd expect: 'mid' here means 'with' (a cousin of German 'mit'), and 'wif' simply meant 'woman.' So a midwife is literally the woman who is 'with' the mother — standing beside her through it all. The word never meant the middle of anything; it always meant company in the hardest hours.
- ancient pedigree
- Egyptian texts named midwives over 4,000 years ago
- name origin
- Means with-woman, not mid-anything
- better outcomes
- Midwife-led care lowers intervention and death rates
- royal duty
- Witnesses once watched royal births to prevent baby-swapping
- survival skill
- Delivers billions where no doctor ever arrives
for instance
call the midwife — bbc drama series following nurse midwives in 1950s east london, aired since 2012
ina may gaskin — american midwife who founded the farm midwifery center in tennessee in 1971, pioneered natural childbirth