Dallas Public Library

Delivered by midwives, African American midwifery in the twentieth-century South, Jenny M. Luke

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 151-188) and index

illustrations

index present

non fiction

Delivered by midwives

bibliography

1031409779

Jenny M. Luke

African American midwifery in the twentieth-century South

""Catchin' babies" was merely one aspect of the broad role of African American midwives in the twentieth-century South. Yet, little has been written about the type of care they provided or how midwifery and maternity care evolved under the increasing presence of local and federal health care structures. Using evidence from nursing, medical, and public health journals of the era; primary sources from state and county departments of health; and personal accounts from varied practitioners, Delivered by Midwives: African American Midwifery in the Twentieth-Century South provides a new perspective on the childbirth experience of African American women and their maternity care providers during the twentieth century. Author Jenny M. Luke moves beyond the usual racial dichotomies to expose a more complex shift in childbirth culture, revealing the changing expectations and agency of African American women in their rejection of a two-tier maternity care system and their demands to be part of an inclusive, desegregated society. Moreover, Luke illuminates valuable aspects of a maternity care model previously discarded in the name of progress. High maternal and infant mortality rates led to the passage of the Sheppard-Towner Maternity and Infancy Protection Act in 1921. This marked the first attempt by the federal government to improve the welfare of mothers and babies. Almost a century later, concern about maternal mortality and persistent racial disparities have forced a reassessment. Elements of the long-abandoned care model are being reincorporated into modern practice, answering current health care dilemmas by heeding lessons from the past." -- Provided by publisher

Motherwit: lay midwifery -- Out of slavery -- Cultural motifs persist -- Licensing and the "new laws" -- Implementing the changes -- Working with the state -- Working with physicians -- Asafetida to aureomycin: African American nurse-midwives -- Establishing the professional nurse-midwife -- African American nurse-midwives -- The application of nurse-midwives -- Problems of racism and challenges to professionalism -- Changing attitudes and better access -- Overcoming challenges -- African American women turn to hospital birth -- Changing childbirth customs -- Midwifery in transition -- Lay midwives "retire" -- Midwifery becomes a white woman's realm -- Midwifery today and its potential for tomorrow