Download or read book African American Midwifery in the South written by Gertrude Jacinta FRASER and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Starting at the turn of the century, most African American midwives in the South were gradually excluded from reproductive health care. Gertrude Fraser shows how physicians, public health personnel, and state legislators mounted a campaign ostensibly to improve maternal and infant health, especially in rural areas. They brought traditional midwives under the control of a supervisory body, and eventually eliminated them. In the writings and programs produced by these physicians and public health officials, Fraser finds a universe of ideas about race, gender, the relationship of medicine to society, and the status of the South in the national political and social economies. Fraser also studies this experience through dialogues of memory. She interviews members of a rural Virginia African American community that included not just retired midwives and their descendants, but anyone who lived through this transformation in medical care--especially the women who gave birth at home attended by a midwife. She compares these narrations to those in contemporary medical journals and public health materials, discovering contradictions and ambivalence: was the midwife a figure of shame or pride? How did one distance oneself from what was now considered superstitious or backward and at the same time acknowledge and show pride in the former unquestioned authority of these beliefs and practices? In an important contribution to African American studies and anthropology, African American Midwifery in the South brings new voices to the discourse on the hidden world of midwives and birthing.
Download or read book Delivered by Midwives written by Jenny M. Luke and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2018-10-04 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2019 American Association for the History of Nursing Lavinia L. Dock Award for Exemplary Historical Research and Writing in a Book “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. 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.
Download or read book Birthing Justice written by Julia Chinyere Oparah and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-12-22 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is a global crisis in maternal health care for black women. In the United States, black women are over three times more likely to perish from pregnancy-related complications than white women; their babies are half as likely to survive the first year. Many black women experience policing, coercion, and disempowerment during pregnancy and childbirth and are disconnected from alternative birthing traditions. This book places black women's voices at the center of the debate on what should be done to fix the broken maternity system and foregrounds black women's agency in the emerging birth justice movement. Mixing scholarly, activist, and personal perspectives, the book shows readers how they too can change lives, one birth at a time.
Download or read book The Women who Caught the Babies written by Eloise Greenfield and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through narrative and photographs, Greenfield highlights important aspects from a few hundred years of the lives of African-American midwives and the people they selflessly served.
Download or read book The Archaeology of Mothering written by Laurie A. Wilkie and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First Published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Download or read book Granny Midwives and Black Women Writers written by Valerie Lee and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Midwives, women healers and root workers have been central figures in the African American folk traditions. Particularly in Black communities in the rural south, these women served vital social, cultural and political functions. It was believed that they possessed magical powers: they negotiated the barrier between life and death and were often regarded as the "knower" in a community. Today even as medical science has discredited or superseded their power, granny midwives have resurfaced as pivotal characters in the narratives of contemporary African American literature. GrannyMidwives and Black Women Writersexamines the lives of realgranny midwives and other healers--through oral narratives, ethnographic research and documentation--and considers them in tandem with their fictional counterparts in the work of Toni Morrison, Gloria Naylor, Alice Walker and others.
Download or read book In the Way of Our Grandmothers written by Debra Anne Susie and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2009-02-01 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on the accounts of midwives, their descendants, and the women they served, In the Way of Our Grandmothers tells of the midwife's trade--her principles, traditions, and skills--and of the competing medical profession's successful program to systematically destroy the practice. The rural South was one of the last strongholds of the traditional "granny" midwife. Whether she came by her trade through individual choice or inherited a practice from an older relative, a woman who accepted the "call" of midwife launched a lifelong vocation of public service. While the profession was arduous, it had numerous rewards. Midwives assumed positions of leadership within their communities, were able to define themselves and their actions on their own terms, and derived a great sense of pride and satisfaction from performing a much-loved job. Despite national statistics that placed midwives above all other attendants in low childbirth mortality, Florida's state health experts began in the early twentieth century to view the craft as a menace to public health. Efforts to regulate midwives through education and licensing were part of a long-term plan to replace them with modern medical and hospital services. Eager to demonstrate their good will and common interest, most midwives complied with the increasingly restrictive rules imposed by the state, unknowingly contributing to the demise of their own profession. The recent interest of the youthful middle class in home birth methods has been accompanied by a rediscovery of the midwife's craft. Yet the new midwifery represents the state's successful attainment of a long-awaited goal: the replacement of the traditional lay midwife with the modern nurse-midwife. In the Way of Our Grandmothers provides a voice for the few women in the South who still remember the earlier trade--one that evolved organically from the needs of women and existed outside the realms of men.
Download or read book Listen to Me Good written by Margaret Charles Smith and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Smith is one of the few who can recount old-time birthing ways.
Download or read book Working Cures written by Sharla M. Fett and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Working Cures explores black health under slavery showing how herbalism, conjuring, midwifery and other African American healing practices became arts of resistance in the antebellum South and invoked conflicts.
Download or read book Birthing Justice written by Alicia D. Bonaparte and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-09-21 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The second edition of this pathbreaking, widely taught book offers six new chapters, on breastfeeding and Black infant health; Black birthing during COVID; Black doulas rethinking birthing practices; the recent buildup of a US national movement; childbirth in Zanzibar; and expanding the global movement for sexual and reproductive well-being. Other chapters are updated throughout. Birthing Justice puts Black women’s voices at the center of the debate on what should be done to fix the broken maternal care system. It foregrounds Black women’s agency in the birth justice movement. First published in 2016, Birthing Justice is a seminal text for those interested in maternal healthcare, reproductive justice, health equity, and intersectional racial justice, especially in courses on gender studies, Black studies, public health, and training programs for midwives and OB/GYNs.
Download or read book Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired written by Susan L. Smith and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2010-08-03 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired moves beyond the depiction of African Americans as mere recipients of aid or as victims of neglect and highlights the ways black health activists created public health programs and influenced public policy at every opportunity. Smith also sheds new light on the infamous Tuskegee syphilis experiment by situating it within the context of black public health activity, reminding us that public health work had oppressive as well as progressive consequences.
Download or read book A History of Midwifery in the United States written by Dr. Joyce E. Thompson, DrPH, RN, CNM, FAAN, FACNM and published by Springer Publishing Company. This book was released on 2015-11-04 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written by two of the professionís most prominent midwifery leaders, this authoritative history of midwifery in the United States, from the 1600s to the present, is distinguished by its vast breadth and depth. The book spans the historical evolution of midwives as respected, autonomous health care workers and midwifery as a profession, and considers the strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities for this discipline as enduring motifs throughout the text. It surveys the roots of midwifery, the beginnings of professional practice, the founding of educational institutions and professional organizations, and entry pathways into the profession. Woven throughout the text are such themes as the close link between midwives and the communities in which they live, their view of pregnancy and birth as normal life events, their efforts to promote health and prevent illness, and their dedication to being with women wherever they may be and in whatever health condition and circumstances they may be in. The text examines the threats to midwifery past and present, such as the increasing medicalization of childbearing care, midwiferyís lack of a common identity based on education and practice standards, the mix of legal recognition, and reimbursement issues for midwifery practice. Illustrations and historical photos depict the many facets of midwifery, and engaging stories provide cultural and spiritual content. This is a ìmust-haveî for all midwives, historians, professional and educational institutions, and all those who share a passion for the history of midwifery and women. Key Features: Encompasses the most authoritative and comprehensive information available about the history of midwifery in the United States Considers the strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities for midwifery Illustrated with historical photos and drawings Includes engaging stories filled with cultural and spiritual content, introductory quotes to each chapter, and plentiful chapter notes Written by two preeminent leaders in the field of midwifery
Download or read book From Midwives to Medicine written by Deborah Kuhn McGregor and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this social history of the development of modern gynecology in the mid-19th century, McGregor (history, women's studies, U. of Illinois-Springfield) reflects the attitudes and practices of the day through the controversial career of J. Marion Sims, the father of gynecology. Includes illustrations of early medical practitioners and establishments (in particular, New York's Woman's Hospital). Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Download or read book Motherwit written by Onnie Lee Logan and published by Untreed Reads. This book was released on 2013-11-27 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Motherwit" and "common sense" were the watchwords of Onnie Lee Logan's career as a lay midwife in Mobile County, Alabama. Although she received little formal education, endured the Depression and faced a racist society, Onnie Lee Logan experienced her life as the triumphant fulfillment of a dream to be one of those who could bring babies into the world, as her mother and grandmother had done before her. Her story, told in the soft, now vanishing dialect of the Deep South, is powerful and fascinating oral history. Motherwit follows her life through her work as a servant for a wealthy Mobile family, her troubled marriage during the Depression, and her struggle to become a licensed midwife. We watch as she delivers the babies of both black and white women of Alabama--losing only one baby in 40 years. Onnie Lee Logan's forbearance in the face of the crushing prejudice of the rural South makes inspiring and unforgettable reading. When she passed away in 1995, the New York Times declared her a “folk hero,” and Time called her book “a feminist classic.” Filled with startling drama and profound wisdom, Motherwit is an important contribution to African-American history. "An amazing story. A heroic woman and life after my own heart." Alice Walker "To have told her own story, to have borne this eloquent witness to her life is Onnie Lee Logan's final triumph." Ellen Douglas in the Washington Post Book World "Oral history doesn't come much better than this." Booklist "Beautiful...her passion rings through in every line." Los Angeles Times
Download or read book Midwives written by Chris Bohjalian and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2002-08-13 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • This modern classic from the author of The Flight Attendant is a compulsively readable novel that explores questions of human responsibility that are as fundamental to our society now as they were when the book was first published. A selection of Oprah's original Book Club that has sold more than two million copies. On an icy winter night in an isolated house in rural Vermont, a seasoned midwife named Sibyl Danforth takes desperate measures to save a baby’s life. She performs an emergency cesarean section on a mother she believes has died of stroke. But what if—as Sibyl's assistant later charges—the patient wasn't already dead? The ensuing trial bears the earmarks of a witch hunt, forcing Sibyl to face the antagonism of the law, the hostility of traditional doctors, and the accusations of her own conscience. Exploring the complex and emotional decisions surrounding childbirth, Midwives engages, moves, and transfixes us as only the very best novels ever do. Look for Chris Bohjalian's new novel, The Lioness!
Download or read book Sisters on a Journey written by Penfield Chester and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Twenty-seven midwives share their views on the challenges and rewards of helping women through childbirth
Download or read book Monique and the Mango Rains written by Kris Holloway and published by Waveland Press. This book was released on 2006-07-20 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a remote corner of West Africa, Monique Dembele saved lives and dispensed hope every day in a place where childbirth is a life-and-death matter. Monique and the Mango Rains is the compelling story of the authors decade-long friendship with Monique, an extraordinary midwife in rural Mali. It is a tale of Moniques unquenchable passion to better the lives of women and children in the face of poverty, unhappy marriages, and endless backbreaking work, as well as her tragic and ironic death. In the course of this deeply personal narrative, as readers immerse in village life and learn firsthand the rhythms of Moniques world, they come to know her as a friend, as a mother, and as an inspired woman who struggled to find her place in a male-dominated world.
