In 1865, midwifery was placed under the jurisdiction of licensed medical practitioners and for a while midwives were even allowed to teach medical students.  However, by the 1870s, the Ontario College of Physicians & Surgeons began prosecuting unlicensed midwives.  Doctors, who had previously shown tolerance to the midwife, suddenly began to see her as an economic threat to their own profession and, by the 1890s, midwives were no longer welcome in hospitals.  Physicians decided that delivery was their domain alone. 

The National Council of Women of Canada then began planning the Victorian Order of Home Helpers which was a network of midwives with adequate education to infiltrate into the community.  However, both nurses and physicians in the hospitals saw this as a threat to their jobs and status, and the Victorian Order was eventually brought under the jurisdiction of general practitioners.

Between 1900 and 1920 there was also a sharp rise in postnatal maternal mortality and the first public health department was strongly recommending hospital maternity care only.  In fact, the role of the public health nurse was to teach the illegality of midwifery which was considered far from safe.

By the 1930s, most women were choosing hospitals for their deliveries as opposed to home delivery with the local midwife.  Blood transfusions and antibiotics were readily available in hospitals and had lowered the infant and mother mortality rate.

During the 1950s, however, half of the births in Newfoundland and the Northwest Territories were still taking place in the home and there was a consciousness and belief in such methods as Dr. Grantly Dick-Read’s or Lamaze.  Even during the 1960s foreign-trained midwives were continuing to do home births in the major cities.  The Inuit culture was among the last to relinquish midwifery.

Then, during the 1970s and 1980s, a resurgence of interest in acquiring midwifery skills began to take place across Canada, and eventually in Ontario a Midwifery Task Force was established.  This was followed by Task Forces in Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba and Saskatchewan to investigate the safety of midwifery and the advantages of home births once again.  With many general practitioners giving up obstetrics and with rising healthcare costs, self-regulated midwifery was making a comeback.  Guidelines were being established and Baccalaureate programs established.

It seems, therefore, that the midwife has come full circle.  From a highly respected salaried woman in the 1600s to a woman practicing illegal and unsafe deliveries in the early 1900s, she has emerged once again to a point in history where in many areas “demand for the local midwife exceeds the supply.”

The midwife is even mentioned in the Bible.  In the Book of Genesis, Chapter 35:17, it states: “And when her (Rachel) labor was at its hardest, the midwife said to her, “Do not fear, for now you will have another son.”

The midwife was and still is a wise woman, sometimes revered, sometimes feared and sometimes even scorned, but is nonetheless a part of our history and our society through the ages. Today there is even an International Midwives Day held in May!

In my recently released historical fiction series The McBride Chronicles, I compare the comparative dangers of 19^th century births in the first book (Providence) to births from the 1970s onwards in the fourth book (Tomorrow) with survival of both mothers and infants being uppermost—whether in hospitals or under the expert care of the midwife.