Birth Attendants and Midwifery Practice in Early Twentieth-century Derbyshire
The 1902 Midwives Act introduced training and supervision for midwives in England and Wales, outlawing uncertified-and-untrained midwives (handywomen) and phasing out certified-but-untrained (bona fide) midwives. This paper compares the numbers and practices of these two different types of birth att...
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| Format: | Online |
| Language: | English |
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Oxford University Press
2012
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| Online Access: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3338125/ |
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pubmed-3338125 |
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pubmed-33381252012-04-27 Birth Attendants and Midwifery Practice in Early Twentieth-century Derbyshire Reid, Alice Original Articles The 1902 Midwives Act introduced training and supervision for midwives in England and Wales, outlawing uncertified-and-untrained midwives (handywomen) and phasing out certified-but-untrained (bona fide) midwives. This paper compares the numbers and practices of these two different types of birth attendant with each other, with qualified and certified midwives and with doctors in early twentieth-century Derbyshire during this period of change, and examines the spatial and social factors influencing women's choice of birth attendant. It finds that the new legislation did not entirely eliminate continuity in traditional practices and allegiance, and that both social and spatial factors governed the choice of delivery attendant, with fewer midwives available in rural areas and a surviving network of untrained bona fide midwives in mining communities. Within this spatial pattern, however, although wealthier women were more likely to have chosen a doctor or a qualified midwife, familiarity and loyalty allowed bona fide midwives to maintain their case loads. Oxford University Press 2012-05 2011-10-23 /pmc/articles/PMC3338125/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/shm/hkr138 Text en © The Author 2011. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for the Social History of Medicine. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5/ This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5), which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited |
| repository_type |
Open Access Journal |
| institution_category |
Foreign Institution |
| institution |
US National Center for Biotechnology Information |
| building |
NCBI PubMed |
| collection |
Online Access |
| language |
English |
| format |
Online |
| author |
Reid, Alice |
| spellingShingle |
Reid, Alice Birth Attendants and Midwifery Practice in Early Twentieth-century Derbyshire |
| author_facet |
Reid, Alice |
| author_sort |
Reid, Alice |
| title |
Birth Attendants and Midwifery Practice in Early Twentieth-century Derbyshire |
| title_short |
Birth Attendants and Midwifery Practice in Early Twentieth-century Derbyshire |
| title_full |
Birth Attendants and Midwifery Practice in Early Twentieth-century Derbyshire |
| title_fullStr |
Birth Attendants and Midwifery Practice in Early Twentieth-century Derbyshire |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Birth Attendants and Midwifery Practice in Early Twentieth-century Derbyshire |
| title_sort |
birth attendants and midwifery practice in early twentieth-century derbyshire |
| description |
The 1902 Midwives Act introduced training and supervision for midwives in England and Wales, outlawing uncertified-and-untrained midwives (handywomen) and phasing out certified-but-untrained (bona fide) midwives. This paper compares the numbers and practices of these two different types of birth attendant with each other, with qualified and certified midwives and with doctors in early twentieth-century Derbyshire during this period of change, and examines the spatial and social factors influencing women's choice of birth attendant. It finds that the new legislation did not entirely eliminate continuity in traditional practices and allegiance, and that both social and spatial factors governed the choice of delivery attendant, with fewer midwives available in rural areas and a surviving network of untrained bona fide midwives in mining communities. Within this spatial pattern, however, although wealthier women were more likely to have chosen a doctor or a qualified midwife, familiarity and loyalty allowed bona fide midwives to maintain their case loads. |
| publisher |
Oxford University Press |
| publishDate |
2012 |
| url |
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3338125/ |
| _version_ |
1611525224817229824 |