"At Work in the Field of Birth" is an ethnographic study of
midwifery in Canada in the wake of its historic transition from the
margins as a grassroots social movement devoted to low-tech,
woman-centered care to a regulated profession within the public
health care system. In January 1994, after decades of lobbying by
midwives and their supporters, the province of Ontario recognized
midwifery as a profession for the first time in more than a
century.
Through stories about becoming and being a midwife and stories
about receiving midwifery care, this book describes how fundamental
tenets of midwifery philosophy and practice--the meaning of
tradition, natural birth, and home birth, and the place of medical
technology in midwifery--are being reworked by the practical and
ideological challenges of midwifery's new place within the formal
health care system. MacDonald presents contemporary midwifery as a
complex cultural system in which "nature" and "tradition" emerge as
dynamic rather than esssentialized social categories of meaning and
experience.
STORY EXCERPT:
Martina, another rural midwife, tells me "My great-grandmother was
a midwife . . . so I sort of have this idea that there is still a
bit of that in my blood. But at the same time-I mean, we don't just
get called during labour-it's much more clinical. We are doing
blood work that my grandmother wouldn't have done and more lab work
and tests. But I want to hold on to some of that. I don't want to
become a techno midwife. It's not what I want to do at all. It
doesn't mean tat we don't use technology or are not willing to-we
certainly do, all the time. But I think that one thing that
attracts women to midwives and certainlyattracts women to become
midwives is the sense of the neighbour, the friend, having a cup of
tea. It is more friendly, you've got time to spend with women."
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