At Work in the Field of Birth

by MacDonald, Margaret

• ISBN13: 9780826515766
• ISBN10: 0826515762
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-02-18
• Publisher: Vanderbilt Univ Pr

Summary

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 certainly attracts 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.”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.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. vii
A Field of Narratives	p. 1
Tales of Loss and Renaissance	p. 25
What is Midwifery?	p. 52
Natural Births and Gender Expectations	p. 93
Birth Places and Midwifery Spaces	p. 127
Epilogue: The Politics of Representation Revisited	p. 167
Glossary of Terms and Acronyms	p. 173
Notes	p. 175
References Cited	p. 187
Index	p. 201
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