Midwifery: An Undercelebrated Profession

Society
STEM
Environmental and Science Education
Miscellaneous
Edward Hessler

Long ago (it seems and it was) I got to know a midwife researcher who focused his research on midwifes in the Netherlands. We never talked deeply about this but knowing him and his work raised, I think, for the first time a sensitivity to the profound work of midwives. I gained an awareness for those who choose to serve women while birthing. DeVries is the author of The Pleasing Birth. Now that is a wonderful title!

I also have a friend whose wife was once a practicing doula. The short conversations we had about her practice (in those corridors and corners of meetings) further deepened my appreciation. It is still a a very shallow one at best.

As far as I'm concerned birthing is a STEM career, one with a powerful social side.  I've called attention to the work of obstetric nurses before. Both midwives and obstetrical nurses practice an applied art and science with a large measure of of love.

Pictures, gorgeous pictures of midwives at work, are from Catherine Pearson's HuffPost article celebrating the quiet work of midwives--moments of great beauty, of pain and of joy as a baby is welcomed to an uncertain world.

More than three deserving and belated cheers for their glorious work.

I didn't know until I read the article of  the International Association of Professional Birth Photographers, the organization that provided the photographs in Pearson's celebratory essay.