Based on the accounts of midwives, their descendants, and the women
they served, "In the Way of Our Grandmothers" tells of the
midwife's trade--her principles, traditions, and skills--and of the
competing medical profession's successful program to systematically
destroy the practice.
The rural South was one of the last strongholds of the
traditional "granny" midwife. Whether she came by her trade through
individual choice or inherited a practice from an older relative, a
woman who accepted the "call" of midwife launched a lifelong
vocation of public service. While the profession was arduous, it
had numerous rewards. Midwives assumed positions of leadership
within their communities, were able to define themselves and their
actions on their own terms, and derived a great sense of pride and
satisfaction from performing a much-loved job.
Despite national statistics that placed midwives above all other
attendants in low childbirth mortality, Florida's state health
experts began in the early twentieth century to view the craft as a
menace to public health. Efforts to regulate midwives through
education and licensing were part of a long-term plan to replace
them with modern medical and hospital services. Eager to
demonstrate their good will and common interest, most midwives
complied with the increasingly restrictive rules imposed by the
state, unknowingly contributing to the demise of their own
profession.
The recent interest of the youthful middle class in home birth
methods has been accompanied by a rediscovery of the midwife's
craft. Yet the new midwifery represents the state's successful
attainment of a long-awaited goal: the replacement of the
traditional lay midwife with the modern nurse-midwife. "In the Way
of Our Grandmothers" provides a voice for the few women in the
South who still remember the earlier trade--one that evolved
organically from the needs of women and existed outside the realms
of men.
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