| Midwives |
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| Since antiquity midwives have been helping women give birth. Today midwifery is a practice that believes pregnancy and birth are natural occurances rather than medical conditions. All over the world the practice of midwifery is slowly being medicialised, with care guidlines the midwives must provied. I do not believe in this new "midwifery", I am a radical midwife. Radical midwives believe that midwifery care should be taliored to the pregnant woman and her desires for care, not "guidelines of care" that must be met. Many of these guidelines deal with prenatal care and invasive operations during pregnancy and labour. Some of these mandatory things are 12 penatal check ups, ultrasounds, and the measureing and checking of dialtion of the cervic during labour. These prodecures do not empower the woman or encourage active birth, which midwives should do. Instead they tell the woman that she does not know her own body well enough to know what is best or when and how to give birth. Women do know what is best and are prefectly capable of giving birth therefore these procedures are unnecssary. Midwives supervise birth and pregnancy, and provide general care during pregnancy, childbirth, and care of the child until the child is 28 days old. Midwifery is a specialised feild, they only work with pregnancy, birth, and newborns. There are many nurse-midwives (RNM) but you do not have to be a nurse in order to be a midwife. There are midwives who have only been trained in midwifery however your particular region of the world will determine what the registartion requirements for a midwife are. Midwives are taught the progress of a normal birth and develiery, along with certain delievery skills such as aromatherapy and it's uses in childbirth, massage, birth positions, water birth, herbs for childbirth, and other holistic techniques. They are also trained to detect developing problems and signs that the pregnancy is not normal. Should complications arise then the midwife is required to turn the rest of pregnancy and/or birth over to a doctor. Midwives do not preform cesarn sections, and rarely make any cuts on the woman. However they are trained for small cuts and in stutring of rips, taers, and those minor cuts. Midwifery care provides continuous care and emotional support during this special times in a woman's life. Communitcation between the woman and midwife is paramount and the midwife works with the woman to reduce risk of complications in childbirth. Also, midwives work with the family, and in most cases promote family participation in the birth. Midwives place great importance and pay great attention to cultrural attitudes, values, and personal preferances of the women in their care. Midwives are very safe, studies show midwifery care is just as safe if not more safe than psychian attended births. Midwives are commited, or suposedly but definatly radical midwives, to nonintervention and therefore are genereally opposed to the use of pain medications or intrusive operations during a normal labour process. They provide health education and emotional support, along with encourage a woman's active participation in labour. The contious support and presance of a midwife during active labour has many advantages. The first advantage is her preseance and reduce the length of labour and the possibility of a need for cesaran secion. The support of midwives reduces the need for pain medication. Another advantage is a reduced risk for need to forceps and other operative instruments used in delivery. All these advantages help a woman to take an acitve role in her birthing experince. In the United States there are two kinds of midwives. Direct entry midwives and nurse-midwives. Direct entry midwives entry midwifery through specialised pregnancy and childbirth training with no previous medical experince. Direct entry midwives are sometimes refered to as DEMs or CMs (certifited midwife.) Nurse-midwives are midwives who have entered midwifery after receiving a 4 year nursing degree and qualify as registered nurses. |