Midwifery Model of Care
Why would a woman choose a midwife for her care in pregnancy?
Midwifery practice views pregnancy as a critical, vulnerable, but normal process in the life of a woman.
The midwifery model of care makes the woman and her life the central focus of prenatal care and her birth.
The midwife is interested in the woman's expectations and experience of her pregnancy - her perceptions and beliefs; her knowledge and opinions; her questions and worries; her satisfactions and dissatisfactions; her comforts and discomforts; her desires, decisions, and actions; and the effect of all these on her pregnancy, fetus, labor, birth, breastfeeding, postpartum recovery, and development as a mother.
The midwifery model establishes the pregnant woman as an active partner in her own care and recognizes her as the primary actor and decision-maker.
Midwives try to protect, support, and avoid interfering with the normal processes; thus they try to avoid unnecessary use of obstetric interventions.
Many midwives avoid saying that they deliver babies; rather they attend the laboring woman and catch the baby, recognizing that the woman herself, through her labor, delivers her own child into the world.
Pregnancy results in a mother as well as a baby. It is important that the woman's transition into motherhood is a positive experience, that she and all members of her family make emotionally healthy adjustments to each pregnancy and birth.
Excerpts from article by: Judith P. Rooks CNM, FACNM MPH, MS, Journal of Midwifery and Womens Health, July 1999 (Vol. 44, Issue 4, Pages 370-374).