"I was fortunate to have been able to attend Frontier School of Midwifery and Family Nursing, in Kentucky." She received a postgraduate certificate as a
nurse-midwife. "My first job was as a
nurse-midwife in one of those high risk zip codes.
"We're there to support a woman's birth no matter what she wants," said Maribeth Wallace-Hall, a certified
nurse-midwife who has practiced at St.
On determining that referral was required, the
nurse-midwife counselled the family about the woman's condition and likely risks to the woman or fetus, assured them that she would accompany them to hospital and/or arrange for a social worker to meet them on admission, and offered to arrange for transport (free or subsidised for poorer sections).
(The cell size for
nurse-midwife was too small to test for significance.) ([double dagger]) The three clinician types differ significantly from one another at p<.05.
Letts delivers her story, much like the
nurse-midwife she is--with deft hands, coaxing the reader on with absorbing dialogue and narration; providing them with a protagonist who never succumbs to excessive sentimentality, which helps the reader follow Clara through her painful journey to the story's ultimately uplifting resolution.
Mary Edsen, now retired, who suggested she become a
nurse-midwife when they were stationed together at George Air Force, Calif.
In an article featured in Midwifery Today magazine, Natasha Beauchamp, a retired birth attendant who is now involved in making interactive health education videos, offers advice for those people without nursing licences wishing to become a certified
nurse-midwife.
The "pregnancy bible" of the 90s, What to Expect When You're Expecting, states unequivocally that the only type of midwife that can provide safe or effective care in pregnancy is a
nurse-midwife.
Today's
nurse-midwife is a far cry from the "granny" or other uneducated, untrained village midwife still common in much of the Third World.
For such women there is an alternative to relying solely on an obstetrician: the certified
nurse-midwife. Midwifery, the art of assisting at childbirth, is an old idea that has seen a revival.
"Midwives view birth as a positive process, rather than a medical one or an illness,' says Marion McCartney, a certified
nurse-midwife and one of the "founding mothers' of the Maternity Center.
First, women can't legally choose to have their birth attended by a midwife other than a Certified
Nurse-Midwife. Second, trained and educated midwives (the vast majority of whom are women) are restricted from being able to freely practice their chosen profession.
