Editing Midwifery (section)

===Modern history===
{{see also|Women medical practitioners in Early Modern Europe#Midwives}}
From the 18th century, a conflict between [[surgeon]]s and midwives arose, as medical men began to assert that their modern scientific techniques were better for mothers and infants than the [[folk medicine]] practiced by midwives.<ref>{{cite book | last1 = Van Teijlingen | first1 = Edwin R. | last2 = Lowis | first2 = George W. |last3 = McCaffery |first3 = Peter G. | title = Midwifery and the Medicalization of Childbirth: Comparative Perspectives | publisher = Nova Publishers | date = 2004 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=2DHrH08bl5YC | isbn = 9781594540318}}</ref><ref>{{cite book | last1 = Borst | first1 = Charlotte G. | title = Catching Babies: The Professionalization of Childbirth, 1870-1920 | publisher = Harvard University Press | date = 1995 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=35q762L0IzMC | isbn = 9780674102620}}</ref>
As doctors and medical associations pushed for a legal monopoly on obstetrical care, midwifery became outlawed or heavily regulated throughout the United States and Canada.<ref name=Ehrenreich>{{cite book|last=Ehrenreich|first=Barbara|title=Witches, Midwives and Nurses: A History of Women Healers|url=https://archive.org/details/witchesmidwivesn00ehrerich|url-access=registration|year=2010|publisher=The Feminist Press|isbn=978-0-912670-13-3|pages=85–87|edition=2nd|author2=Deirdre English}}</ref><ref name=Rooks1997>{{cite book|last=Rooks|first=Judith Pence|title=Midwifery and childbirth in America|year=1997|publisher=Temple University Press|location=Philadelphia|isbn=1-56639-711-1|page=422}}</ref> In Northern Europe and Russia, the situation for midwives was a little easier - in the Duchy of Estonia in [[Russian Empire|Imperial Russia]], Professor Christian Friedrich Deutsch established a midwifery school for women at the [[University of Dorpat]] in 1811, which existed until World War I. It was the predecessor for the [[Tartu Health Care College]]. Training lasted for 7 months and in the end a certificate for practice was issued to the female students.  Despite accusations that midwives were "incompetent and ignorant",<ref>{{cite book|last=Varney|first=Helen|title=Varney's midwifery|url=https://archive.org/details/varneysmidwifery00varn|url-access=limited|year=2004|publisher=Jones and Bartlett|location=Sudbury, Mass.|isbn=0-7637-1856-4|edition=4th|page=[https://archive.org/details/varneysmidwifery00varn/page/n47 7]}}</ref> some argued that poorly trained surgeons were far more of a danger to pregnant women.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Williams|first=J. Whitridge|title=The Midwife Problem and Medical Education in the United States|journal=American Association for Study and Prevention of Infant Mortality: Transactions of the Second Annual Meeting|year=1912|pages=165–194}}</ref> In 1846, the physician [[Ignaz Semmelweiss]] observed that more women died in maternity wards staffed by male surgeons than by female midwives, and traced these outbreaks of [[Postpartum infections|puerperal fever]] back to (then all-male) medical students not washing their hands properly after [[History of anatomy in the 19th century|dissecting cadavers]], but his sanitary recommendations were ignored until acceptance of [[Germ theory of disease|germ theory]] became widespread.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Davis |first1=Rebecca |title=The Doctor Who Championed Hand-Washing And Briefly Saved Lives |url=https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/01/12/375663920/the-doctor-who-championed-hand-washing-and-saved-women-s-lives?t=1576014381640 |website=NPR |access-date=10 December 2019 |archive-date=10 December 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191210222137/https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/01/12/375663920/the-doctor-who-championed-hand-washing-and-saved-women-s-lives%3Ft%3D1576014381640 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Historical perspective on hand hygiene in health care |title=WHO Guidelines on Hand Hygiene in Health Care: First Global Patient Safety Challenge Clean Care Is Safer Care. |date=2009 |publisher=World Health Organization |location=Geneva |page=4 |url=https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK144018/ |access-date=10 December 2019 |archive-date=13 June 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200613045032/https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK144018/ |url-status=live }}</ref>
[[File:Midwife's case and contents.jpg|thumb|Midwife's case and contents, Scunthorpe Maternity Hospital, 1920s/30s (North Lincolnshire Museum)]]
The argument that surgeons were more dangerous than midwives lasted until the study of bacteriology became popular in the early 1900s and hospital hygiene was improved. Women began to feel safer in the setting of the hospitals with the amount of aid and the ease of birth that they experienced with doctors.{{Citation needed|date=December 2019}} "Physicians trained in the new century found a great contrast between their hospital and obstetrics practice in women's homes where they could not maintain sterile conditions or have trained help."<ref name="Brought to Bed">{{cite book|last=Leavitt|first=Judith W.|title=Brought to Bed: Childbearing in America, 1750-1950|year=1988|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Book|isbn=978-0195056907|page=178}}</ref> German [[Social sciences|social scientists]] [[Gunnar Heinsohn]] and Otto Steiger theorize that midwifery became a target of persecution and repression by public authorities because midwives possessed highly specialized knowledge and skills regarding not only assisting birth, but also contraception and abortion.<ref>Gunnar Heinsohn/Otto Steiger: "Witchcraft, Population Catastrophe and Economic Crisis in Renaissance Europe: An Alternative Macroeconomic Explanation.", [[University of Bremen]] 2004 [https://www.scribd.com/doc/54474527 (download)]{{dead link|date=March 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}; {{cite journal |first1=Gunnar |last1=Heinsohn |first2=Otto |last2=Steiger |title=The Elimination of Medieval Birth Control and the Witch Trials of Modern Times |journal=International Journal of Women's Studies |volume=3 |date=May 1982 |pages=193–214 |title-link=Witch trial }} {{cite journal |first1=Gunnar |last1=Heinsohn |first2=Otto |last2=Steiger |title=Birth Control: The Political-Economic Rationale Behind Jean Bodin's 'Démonomanie' |journal=History of Political Economy |volume=31 |issue=3 |pages=423–448 |doi=10.1215/00182702-31-3-423 |pmid=21275210 |date=1999|s2cid=31013297 }}</ref>

====Contemporary====
At late 20th century, midwives were already recognized as highly trained and specialized professionals in obstetrics. However, at the beginning of the 21st century, the medical perception of pregnancy and childbirth as potentially pathological and dangerous still dominates Western culture. Midwives who work in hospital settings also have been influenced by this view, although by and large they are trained to view birth as a normal and healthy process. While midwives play a much larger role in the care of pregnant mothers in Europe than in America, the medicalized model of birth still has influence in those countries, even though the World Health Organization recommends a natural, normal and humanized birth.<ref name="Fortaleza declaration">{{cite web|date=22–26 April 1985|title=Fortaleza Declaration: Appropriate Use of Technology for Birth|url=http://www.weikert.de/alexandra/who1.html|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200216130822/http://www.weikert.de/alexandra/who1.html|archive-date=2020-02-16|access-date=2020-06-11|publisher=World Health Organization}}</ref>

The midwifery model of pregnancy and childbirth as a normal and healthy process plays a much larger role in Sweden and the Netherlands than the rest of Europe, however. Swedish midwives stand out, since they administer 80 percent of prenatal care and more than 80 percent of family planning services in Sweden. Midwives in Sweden attend all normal births in public hospitals and Swedish women tend to have fewer interventions in hospitals than American women. The Dutch [[List of countries by infant and under-five mortality rates|infant mortality rate]] is one of the lowest rate in the world, at 4.0 deaths per thousand births, while the United States ranked twenty-second. Midwives in the Netherlands and Sweden owe a great deal of their success to supportive government policies.<ref name="Lingo 2004">{{cite encyclopedia |url=http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3402800303.html |last=Lingo |first=Alison Klairmont |author-link=Alison Klairmont |title=Obstetrics and Midwifery § Midwifery from 1900 to the Present |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood in History and Society |date=2004 |publisher=Gale |place=Farmington Hills, MI |access-date=June 28, 2015 |postscript=none |archive-date=July 1, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150701033459/http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3402800303.html |url-status=live }}, from ''Encyclopedia.com''.</ref>