Birth attendants and their places of practice

Abstract

For most of human history procreation has been managed by the individuals concerned, as it is with other animals in the wild which, as the close observations of modern zoologists confirm, give birth unaided and without apparent pain or distress. Likewise in different times and places, there have been many records of women, unattended, giving birth simply and safely. For example, the American squaw, living in her tribal culture, carried on her normal activities throughout pregnancy. Then,

When she realises that her hour of delivery is at hand, she enters her cabin or betakes herself to some stream or spring, gives birth, washes the young ‘injun’ in the cold water, straps it on her back, and before she has been scarcely missed, has returned a full-fledged mother, and resumes her labours. [1, p. 113]

Dr Grantly Dick-Read, who inspired the Natural Birth Movement of the 20th century, was first drawn to this philosophy ‘by witnessing a woman in the battlefields of Flanders calmly delivering her own child and walking off laughing with the child at the breast. The woman followed her natural instinct and tradition’ [2]. The American anthropologist, Margaret Mead, recorded ‘I have never heard primitive women describe the pain of childbirth’ [3].