Midwifery as a practice
Since the very beginning of human history, the delivery of babies has been attended by midwives. These women have been regarded as experts and admired for being predominant providers of care for birthing mothers for millennia. According to Kerr (2021), having initially emerged in the Old World, this practice spread to the United States with the discovery of North America and became a crucial service to those who needed it most. As the country was developing, midwifery still remained a widespread practice.
Bringing midwifery to Cincinnati: Historical influence
The nineteenth century in the United States, among other things, was defined by high immigration statistics. The state of Ohio – and, in particular, the city of Cincinnati – became a major destination for Irish immigrants. As per Cincinnati: A City of Immigrants (n.d.), escaping hunger that occurred due to crop failures in their country in the middle of the century, people from Ireland were seeking work. The city offered great opportunities – workforce was needed to dig for the Erie Canal and Miami, as well as to construct the railways. That contributed to the number of Irish immigrants in Cincinnati profoundly growing starting from the 1840s.
Bringing midwifery to Cincinnati: Various influences
The Irish brought with them a cultural legacy that influenced America’s perception of them as their traditions and ideals struck root and started to grow in Cincinnati and throughout the whole country. The emergence of midwifery in the city clashed with the arrival of the Irish – which is hardly a coincidence seeing how the practice was common with Europeans. However, Rose (2018) notes that they also brought poverty, which was the main cause of young people leaving their country in the first place. Irish immigrants were marrying other Irish immigrants, intending to start a family – and spreading poverty even further, which contributed to the demand for midwifery as well.
Midwifery in Cincinnati
Given that now even more poor women – there were more poor people in the area than the Irish – gave birth, there was an extremely high necessity in the form of skilled assistance to this process. According to Anness (2017), it had to be low-cost because these women could not give much, mobile because most of them gave birth at home, and quick because emergencies could arise at any given moment. Taking all of that into consideration, midwives were perfect in providing care for poorer birthing mothers. They met all the needs of women who would otherwise be giving birth on their own – and not necessarily successfully.
Dangers of delivery in the 19th century
Midwives could literally be considered life-savers in many cases of helping with delivery. This is due to childbirth complications being one of the leading causes of maternal mortality worldwide for thousands of years – it has only declined significantly in most recent history. Cincinnati of the nineteenth century was no exception – delivery brought great jeopardy to many women. Middendorf (2017) notes that the most common issues when giving birth were prolonged labor, various infections, and excessive bleeding. The latter was especially widespread: in the 1800s, there was no appropriate treatment for post-partum hemorrhage – and many women died of blood loss. That is why midwives, who had proper knowledge, were of invaluable help when something went wrong.
Midwifery as a practice: 19th century
Until the beginning of the 20th century, midwifery was not regulated. The skills of the profession were transferred from practicing midwives to women being their apprentices – doctors at the time were trained the same. According to Middendorf (2017), at that time, the birth of a child has deemed a social event. The soon-to-be mother was comforted by her relatives and female friends who gathered around her. Midwives tend to serve minorities and disadvantaged groups because we’re not able to afford to seek treatment from a doctor. For this reason, the demand for midwives was especially high among immigrants.
Midwives commonly provided service in areas of their residence – it was most convenient for both her and the mother-to-be. Although there was no formal training, midwives had to be highly qualified to prevent difficulties for both newborns and their mothers. Most experienced ones could prescribe ergot fungus to stop the fetus from developing or instruct women to walk around to accelerate delivery. They intervened in cases of prenatal pregnancy, anticipating the problems before they occurred. Middendorf (2017) cites the words of Martha Ballard – a midwife practicing in the nineteenth century. She is reported to have proudly written in her diary that “although she had lost several infants over the years, she had never lost a mother” (Middendorf, 2017). Considering the state of affairs back then, it can actually be regarded as an accomplishment.
Midwives and male physicians
It is interesting to note that midwives had a lower rate of infection transmission to birthing women than doctors did. Anness (2017) explains that, since this is due to the germ theory having not been yet established – doctors tended to go from caring for sick patients to delivering mothers, which often resulted in contamination. Midwives did not have such a problem due to focusing only on mothers. However, their care was considered inferior to care of a male doctor, especially with more information appearing on the reproductive system of women. Yet the medical schools providing this information only admitted men. With the development of medical technology, the service of midwives was becoming less and less popular. Still, there can be no doubt about midwives’ impact on the women they served throughout the 19th century.
References
Anness, M. (2017). Irish births with midwives from 1865 to 1875. University of Cincinnati Archives and Rare Books Library. Web.
Cincinnati: A City of Immigrants. (n.d.). Irish 1840’s — 1910. Web.
Kerr, J. (2021). American midwifery: The history of midwifery and the modern-day midwife. Cincinnati Birth Center. Web.
Middendorf, A. (2017). Death from childbirth and the Cincinnati Irish. University of Cincinnati Archives and Rare Books Library. Web.
Rose, G.S. (2018). American and European immigrant groups in the Midwest by the mid-nineteenth century. In G. Whitney, J. K. Lauck, & J. Hogan (Eds.), Finding a new Midwestern history (pp. 73-95). Nebraska.