Thesis (M.A.)--Brigham Young University. Dept. of History. / Electronic thesis. includes bibliographical references (leaves [77]-82). Also available in print ed.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Michigan, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references.

Coyote Midwives is a documentary film about the birth workers who are leading alternative maternity care and reproductive justice in the state of Illinois. This film examines the medicalization of labor and delivery, the patriarchal norms that constitute a threat to a birthing parent’s health, and the structure in place to ensure that birth remains exclusively physician-controlled. Coyote Midwives captures the energy, spirit, and empowering potential of birth, the negotiation and compromise of “professionalizing” midwives, and the networks of criminalized, black market, safe maternity care that persevere despite the illegalities.

D.Cur. / Midwives are responsible to assess pain before treating it; then they should reassess the pain to evaluate the effectiveness of the interventions and plan future therapy. Accurate and objective measures of labour pain continue to be scarce and the discrepancy in labour pain perceptions between parturients and health-care providers remains challenging. Various pain measurement tools are currently in use measuring chronic and acute pain, but many problems were encountered applying these methods to the woman in labour. The charts were detailed and required too much time to complete. The aim of the study was to develop a multidimensional labour pain assessment instrument to assist clinicians and midwives with labour pain control. Objectives for developing a valid and reliable instrument to accurately measure labour pain included refinement of the labour pain assessment instrument developed from literature, testing of the refined instrument on patients during labour, compilation of a final instrument and development of guidelines on how to implement the labour pain assessment instrument in nursing practice. A descriptive and exploratory approach was used to describe, evaluate, observe, explore and assemble new knowledge on assessment and measurement of pain during the first stage of labour. Development of the instrument was addressed in the literature chapter. The research was conducted in three phases, combining qualitative and quantitative research.During phase one, the instrument was refined in two stages. Focus group interviews were conducted with members regarded as knowledgeable in the field of normal labour who evaluated the face and content validity of the instrument. The most senior people teaching Midwifery at all South African universities evaluated the face and content validity of the instrument with an open-ended questionnaire thereafter, using the Delphi technique. The analysis of the first Delphi round was compared to the focus group analysis. The instrument was altered and submitted to the Delphi experts in a second open-ended questionnaire to confirm the alterations.

Midwives working in labour wards usually have the pleasure of delivering a live baby and rejoicing with the mother. However, the delivery could become tragic for the mothers and midwives when the baby dies at birth due to pregnancy related complications. The result is that midwives have to render care and support to mothers who have lost their babies at birth. The objectives of this study were to explore and describe the experiences of midwives caring for mothers who have lost their babies at birth. A qualitative explorative, descriptive and contextual design was used to conduct this research study to gain an understanding of how the midwives experienced caring for mothers who have lost their babies at birth. A purposive criterion based non-probability sampling method was used. Ten semi-structured face-to-face interviews were conducted to collect data. Ethical considerations were observed throughout the research study. Measures of trustworthiness were ensured by using credibility, transferability, dependability and conformability. Data analysis was done using Tesch’s method to make sense out of text and data. Four themes were identified, namely, Midwives shared their diverse experiences relating to caring for mothers who have lost their babies at birth; Midwives expressed how their personal values and beliefs influenced the ways they dealt with babies dying at birth; Midwives described the organizational values and beliefs related to death and dying and how this influences their own experiences and lastly Midwives provided suggestions regarding how they can be assisted in caring for mothers who have lost their babies at birth. Two main guidelines were developed based on the research findings and literature. The study concludes with recommendations made with regard to areas of nursing practice, education and research.

Midwives are often the lead providers of maternity care for women. To provide the variety of care required by women, they need to be confident in their role and practice. To date, only limited evidence exists in relation to confidence as experienced by midwives. This thesis aims to explore the phenomena of confidence through the lived experience of midwives. In particular, this will encompass confidence in the context of the intrapartum care setting. The theoretical basis for the study was hermeneutic phenomenology, guided by the work of Heidegger and Gadamer. Midwives were recruited from three clinical settings to obtain a diversity of views and experiences. Rich data from diaries and in-depth interviews, from twelve participants, provided insight into the phenomena of confidence and the factors midwives encountered that affected their confidence. The phenomena of confidence consisted of a dynamic balance, between the cognitive and affective elements of knowledge, experience and emotion. This balance was fragile and easily lost, leading to a loss of confidence. Confidence was viewed as vital to midwifery practice by the participants of the study; however, maintaining their confidence was often likened to a battle. A number of cultural and contextual factors were identified as affecting confidence within the working environment, including trust, collegial relationships and organisational influences. Midwives also described various coping strategies they utilised to maintain their confidence in the workplace environment. This study provides unique insight into the phenomena of confidence for midwives working in intrapartum care, resulting in a number of recommendations. These highlight the importance of leadership, education and support for midwives in the clinical environment in enabling them to develop and maintain confidence in practice.

Employed as midwives, wise women, or healers, female medical practitioners of various faiths disseminated medical knowledge and supplied information pertinent to religious and legal rulings in early modern Europe. While scholars have noted this role for Christian women, they have not studied the unique position of female Jewish healers with regard to municipal regulations, communal politics, medical knowledge, and legal consultations. This dissertation examines the role and influence of Jewish midwives in early modern Western Europe, addressing their interactions with communal leaders, physicians, Christian medical practitioners, and bureaucrats. Exploring their medical influences, their engagement with administrative knowledge systems, and their intellectual status in the eyes of prominent male leaders, this dissertation demonstrates that attention to the roles of Jewish midwives yields new understandings of the structures of knowledge and authority that undergirded early modern European society. Through archival and printed sources in Hebrew, Yiddish, Dutch, and German, the dissertation argues that Jewish midwives offer a crucial analytical lens for understanding many of the shifts in early modern Jewish communal life, medical culture, gender relations, and municipal bureaucracy. It tells the story of how a discrete body of knowledge crossed medical, legal, religious, and linguistic boundaries, allowing Jewish women to become guardians of sensitive information and powerful agents of communal authority. Drawing upon a diverse source base, ranging from notarial records and archives of medical colleges, to Jewish communal registers, personal records, midwifery handbooks, and printed rabbinic sources, I show how female Jewish medical practitioners fit into the larger landscape of medical practice in early modern Europe, as well as the ways that Jewish communal structures carved out unique roles for Jewish midwives during this period. Employing methods from the history of science, gender studies, and Jewish history, my study shows that Jewish midwives became part of an international system of scientific communication, whose content flowed between vernacular and elite practitioners. This dissertation thus sheds new light on the ways in which the inclusion of women as subjects, and gender as a lens, presents a landscape of knowledge-making and transmission whose boundaries are more expansive.

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Yes / Both flexible working and worklife balance (WLB) are important issues for the midwifery profession and can have both positive and negative consequences for midwives working in the National Health Service (NHS). This study examined midwives’ views and experiences of flexible working, work-life balance and the implications for the midwifery profession.

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