Making Midwives Legal: Childbirth, Medicine, and the Law

Women, Gender, and Health

by Raymond G. DeVries

"Everyone who cares about the question of regulating lay-midwifery should consider the author's premise." -Journal of Nurse-Midwifery Making Midwives Legal explores what happens when midwifery and medicine are brought together by legal regulation. Combining historical data on the regulation of midwifery in Europe and the Unites States with a field study of the regulation of midwifery in Texas, Arizona, and California, Raymond G. DeVries uncovers the subtle ways legislation alters the profession-demonstrating both beneficial and detrimental consequences. This new edition includes an updated preface that situates the themes of the book in the current debate over health care and midwifery, an epilogue that examines the major issues in the 1990s and comments on developments that have taken place over the past decade, and an update bibliography. By encouraging thoughtful policy changes in maternity care, Making Midwives Legal contributes to our understanding of the workings of health care systems, medical professions, and the relation between law and medicine. Raymond G. DeVries is associate professor of sociology at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. He is the coauthor of The Perinatal Health Crisis in California and the coeditor of Bioethics and Society and The Sociological Perspective.

232 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1996