Midwife Essay -- Health Care, Nurse-Midwives

Hearing the word midwife leaves many people thinking of unprofessional, inexperienced women who help deliver babies naturally, without the help of medication. In truth, nurse-midwives are registered nurses who have attended additional schooling for women’s health and are taught to make women feel as comfortable as possible. In the beginning, remedies were the females’ legacies, their â€Å"birthright†; these females were known as â€Å"wise-women by the people, witches of charlatans by authorities†. (Ehrenreich, 1973). â€Å"Females were wanderers, traveling from one place to another, healing the sick and wounded.† (Ehrenreich 1973). These women were among the first human healers and they were especially helpful when it came to childbearing. The midwives had many remedies for common treatments, including ones that dealt with childbirth. â€Å"Countless types of their remedies are still in use today by our own pharmaceutical companies†. (Ehren reich, 1973). As time progressed, the women had to fight long and hard for their rights; the right to vote, the right to work, and the right to go to school. In earlier centuries and even a couple of measly decades ago, many of those rights were denied to females. Men ruled the world, and with it, the women. They were the priests, the household heads, basically the alpha dogs which left the women in charge of the house and the kids. They were the physicians of their time and that was all they had. As stated above, midwives were the original OB/GYNs, their medicine is still being used, indirectly, to this very day, and they still found ways to keep improving their amenities by â€Å"providing the same services your OB/GYN would offer.† (Doherty, 2010). By informing Americans about the education of Certified Nurse-Midwi... ...our body, whether you are pregnant or not, odds are that you will experience a â€Å"normal pregnancy†. Some believe that choosing to be cared for by a midwife is one of the best decisions that a woman can make for herself. Nurse-midwives get a great amount of training because â€Å"Certified nurse-midwives are registered nurses who have graduated from a nurse-midwifery education program accredited by the Accreditation Commission for Midwifery Education (ACME) and have passed a national certification examination to receive the professional designation of certified nurse-midwife.† (Credentials, 2010). Choosing a midwife will lower the cost of exams, contraceptives, and birthing procedures; it will give one choices to their own setting for delivery and with their care there will come a resilient bond between patient and midwife that will remain steady for many years to come.