Childbirth, Midwifery and the Medical Establishment

Tim Hitchcock, English Sexualities, 1700–1800 (1997).

In the seventeenth century, men were dominated by hot and dry humors, which meant they were
more rational, strong and intellectual than women, who did not have these qualities, as they have
cold and wet humors.

Women became known as ‘naturally’ the weaker sex.

R. Porter, 'A touch of danger; the man-midwife as sexual predator', in Porter & Rousseau
(eds), Sexual Underworlds of the Enlightenment (Manchester, 1987), pp. 206–232.

Old style medical history saluted the rise of male obstetricians as making a real difference in child
delivery. They were said to have more anatomical experience than women. (pp. 216)

Elbowing out women from child birth roles, women were being reduced to dependent status. (pp.
216)

Experience, history and tradition all lay on the side of the female practioner. Men’s claims that their
skill alone could deliver infants safely was contradicted to centuries of safe deliveries. (pp. 216)

Smellie suggested that the female autonomy had been defined to suit to convenience of the man
midwives finger. (pp. 216)

Women had been performing deliveries successfully ever since the Egyptians. What needed to be
done could be done by women: there is not anything necessary in midwifery, but what a woman can
learn and execute with more propriety and with as much safety as men. (pp. 217)

Thicknesse regarded female resort to man midwives as a device for enjoying forbidden pleasures
with impunity, for indulging in adultery without having to accept responsibility for it. (pp. 217)

Man midwifery spelt an act of violation, but the person who was violated was less the wife than the
husband. (pp. 219)

Francis Foster in 1779 argued that the basic fact about childbirth was that labor was nature’s work.
Women were nature’s midwives, and male practioners were not as safe as women. He thought the
man midwife was redundant. (pp. 219)

Man midwives were to blame and he was a sinister figure. Thicknesse did not have sympathy for
the husband. Ultimately though, the guilty party was the wife. (pp. 220)

Foster concluded with a call to men to expel this: ‘we owe it to ourselves, out lives, our children
and our country’. The man midwife was portrayed as a social catastrophe. (pp. 221)

Blame is reaped on the women more than the male midwife. In the Man Midwife Unmasqu’d, the
man midwife is the woman’s dupe and victim. (pp. 221)

Feminist historians characterize the rise of man midwives as another chapter in patriarchal
subordination of women. (pp. 221)

Man midwives were colluding with female patients in the delivery and confinement of illegitimate
babies. (pp. 222)

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Childbirth, Midwifery and the Medical Establishment

Hunter was active in helping society leaders to conceal the fruits of adulterous relations. He did this
for the Duchess of Grafton and Lady Bolingbroke. (pp. 223)

Society ladies in distress found confederates and complaint accomplices in their liaisons and Hunter
showed no signs of moral qualms. (pp. 224)

B. Schnorrenberg, 'Is childbirth any place for a woman? The decline of midwifery in
eighteenth-century England', Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture, 10 (1981), pp. 393–408.

Schnorrenberg gives a number of reasons as to why women were pushed out, but the most
important is the lack of education.

Eighteenth century, the profession of midwifery began to decline in England. (pp. 393)

Reasons for this: increase in scientific knowledge and medical skill, professionalization of medical
practioners, emerge of ‘Victorian’ ideas of the role, abilities and status of women. (pp. 393)

Beginning of the eighteenth century, any woman could set up a practice as a midwife. She was
supposed to have a license, given by a bishop on the basis of moral character. She received training
through experience – the best served as apprentices, some received instruction for physicians.
Handbooks and treaties were available though advice was questionable. (pp. 394)

There were attempts made in the seventeenth century to remedy this: Peter Chamberlain and Peter
II attempted to establish a corporation for midwives which would have regulated itself and enforced
a requirement for training – midwives and physicians opposed this. (pp. 394)

If something went wrong in labor, it was limited as to what a midwife could do. The better trained
could use manual manipulation, but the midwife had no instruments. If things went rally bad, her
only option was to call the man midwife or physician. (pp. 394)

Only difference between the midwife and the male midwife was that he had instruments. (pp. 395)

Health of the mother was more important than that of the child. C-sections were fatal and did not
take place if the mother was alive. When natural childbirth failed, various instruments were used to
crush and dismember the fetus to expel it. (pp. 395)

Forceps were introduced in eighteenth century, was developed by the Chamberlain family in the
seventeenth century. (pp. 375)

The man midwife was a special category in England. They had a peculiar system of medical
education and organization. Whereas in Scotland, midwifery received standard university medical
training. (pp. 396)

The whole system of medical education and professional organization was in need of major reform
in the eighteenth century. (pp. 396)

Midwifery training and the relation of man midwives to women midwifes became a part of the
larger issue of reform of medical education. (pp. 397)

Both men and women were practicing midwifery, no women had a medical degree and only some
had adequate training. (pp. 398)

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Childbirth, Midwifery and the Medical Establishment

Most man midwives in London were not members of the College of Physicians, many had a
Scottish degree, some were members of the Company of Surgeons. (pp. 398)

William Smellie and his student William Hunter both favored giving midwives and men the same
sort of lectures and clinical training, and held private lectures and demonstrations for women. (pp.
398)

1752, with their endorsement, a proposal came to the College of Physicians to set up instruction for
women in midwifery which would be required before licenses were given – it was voted against.
(pp. 398)

When man midwives won their social and professional respectability, they helped to depress he
status and opportunities of women. By the end of the century, midwives attended the labor for those
who could not pay adequately. (p. 400)

There were some exceptions – some midwives attended royal births and others wrote books of
instruction for their fellow practioners. The bulk of writing about midwifery was increasingly
interpretive criticism of men taking over the profession. By the end of the century, the best
midwives were using forceps – the most obvious ground for attack was men’s use of the
instruments. (pp. 400)

Elizabeth Neihill wrote the most vehement attack on man midwives in 1760, she argued that women
were more sympathetic in their attendance to labor and were better trained. (pp. 401)

Another attack of man midwives was made on the grounds of propriety. By the end of the century,
Victorian attitudes about purity and privacy of a woman’s body became widely held. Issue was
raised as to whether women ought to let a man see and touch her. Stories of patients seduced by
their male physicians, or poor women in lying-in hospital being subjected to the harassment of
examination by medical students. (pp. 401)

Argued that man midwives were ruining English women. (pp. 402)

Victorian view of women was influential in the decline of midwives. A lady does not work. It was
argued in that the kind of women who would become a midwife was uneducated and lower class.
(pp. 402)

Women were not happy about men taking her job. Men believed that women were more delicate,
less able to engage in strenuous activity. Women’s minds could not comprehend the mysteries of
science. (pp. 402)

Women were excluded from universities, teaching hospitals and professional organizations.
Medicine was a male preserve. If medicine was to be scientific, it must be male. (pp. 402)

M. C. Versluyen, 'Midwives, medical men and 'poor women labouring of child': lying in
hospitals in eighteenth-century London', in H. Roberts (ed.), Women, Health and Reproduction
(1981)

Versluyen argues it was the implementation of forceps that gave women the edge. But states men
had been present even towards the start of the seventeenth century – in supervisory roles.

In the course of the seventeenth century, former female pre-eminence in the occupation of
midwifery was finally challenged.

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Childbirth, Midwifery and the Medical Establishment

By the end of the century, the male medical midwifery practioner was very much in evidence.

Following continental fashion, male midwifery seems to have been practiced amongst the
aristocracy, who often retained a physician as a member of the household, for his medical skill
along with polite conversation.

By the closing decades of the seventeenth century, aristocratic mothers were still being delivered by
midwives, but a physician man midwife was in the background assuming a supervisory role and
consultative role.

James II’s son was delivered by Mrs Labany, but Dr Chamberlin was officially supervising, but was
away.

Very few medical men had actually performed or saw delivered, but they still tried to teach the
midwife her craft.

Person of rank tended to keep a physician in the background.

In most rural areas, midwifery practice probably continued according to the traditional female-
dominated model. However, in London, and other urban areas, midwifery had become crowded and
a highly competitive occupation from the 1740s.

Fellows of the medical corporations thought that midwifery was a demeaning manual cooperation,
best left to old women. Fellows of the College of Physicians refused to accept more than 10 men
midwives to join the fellowship course in the eighteenth century.

Male midwives had to contend with two more forms of hostility: based on sexual prudery –
violation of female modesty; childbirth was a natural event, not a medical emergency. Therefore,
best to leave it to the excellent and near failing care of the female.

Medical histories have argued that the forceps gave medical men an immediate advance over
midwives, and the forceps were the single most important factor in the medical conquest of
midwifery – Aveling and Radcliffe.

But the extent is questionable, only 10 out of 10,000 cases needed it according to Smellie. Also,
patients were frightened by them, and they transmitted infection as they were not sterile.

Smellie paid clients for her cooperation.

A. Wilson, 'Participant or patient? Seventeenth-century childbirth from the mother's point of

view', in R. Porter (ed.), Patients and Practitioners: Lay Perceptions of Medicine in Pre-
industrial Society (Cambridge, 1985)

The dissatisfaction of female midwives led to the growth of the male practioner.

The summoning of this particular male practioner was a social act – it was not the technical
problems of childbirth but the expectations of women which led to this being called. (pp. 132)

In the seventeenth century, childbirth was under predominately female control; the mother herself
chose who would be present; these were mostly non-professionals, and it took place at home. (pp.
132)

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Childbirth, Midwifery and the Medical Establishment

The seventeenth century mother was a participant, not a patient. (pp. 132)

Ceremony of childbirth was a pervasive ritual, and was maintained by the women of England. (pp.
133)

Before she fell into labor, a mother had already made her social arrangements for the birth; when
labor pains arrived she set this arrangements in motion, summoning the birth attendants she had
chosen in advance – her midwife, and a number of other women who were also designated to take
part. Aristocratic mothers sometimes engaged the midwife to reside with them from the late
pregnancy onwards. (pp. 133)

The midwife was only one of several woman invited at the birth. It seems that typically six or more
women attended. These other women compromised friends, relatives and neighbors. (pp. 134)

Men were absent: childbirth was a woman’s business and a female occasion. The husband sat
downstairs and worried, or whiled away the time with other men in a neighbor’s house; even a
small boy would be sent out the room on the grounds that he was ‘the only male’ present. It was
never prescribed, but simply accepted that the birth was a female affair. (pp. 134)

Tee woman had two main tasks: preparing the room and the caudle. (pp. 134)

There was one woman (apart from the mother) who enjoyed a special status: the birth was managed
by the group, but one member of the group was distinguished as the midwife. (pp. 135)

She was entrusted with the right to touch the genital parts of the mother; she was paid a fee. (pp.
135)

The most important characteristic of the midwife was that she was in charge of the birth. (pp. 135)

Final act of birth itself, namely the swaddling of the child was the responsibility of the midwife to
ensure that swaddling was carried out. (pp. 136)

A small minority of births, perhaps one in thirty became obstructed. Sometimes a second midwife
was summoned. (pp. 137)

On other occasions the second midwife was no more fortunate than the first, and thus we find
instances of three and even four midwives present after protracted obstruction. If none of the
midwives could deliver the child, it would die. (pp. 137)

In these desperate straits the only recourse was to send for a male practioner, who would extract the
dead child with suitable instruments. The task of the midwife was to deliver a living child, the task
of the male practioner to deliver a dead one. (pp. 137)

Until the eighteenth century, male observers accepted without comment the female management of
childbirth and the structure of its ritual: they treated it as natural. (pp. 140)

Midwifery treaties, though mostly written by men were aimed at an audience of midwives, for it
was still believed that the midwife was the appropriate childbed practioner. (pp. 140)

But in the middle decades of the eighteenth century, a new type of male practioner came into being
– the man midwife. They began to write treatises of ‘midwifery’ for men, and from about 1750

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Childbirth, Midwifery and the Medical Establishment

onwards they began to criticize various features of the female ceremony of childbirth. (pp. 140)

The traditional ceremony of childbirth was gradually transformed under the impact of the male
practioner. (pp. 141)

New male prerogative of consumer choice: if dissatisfied with the way the midwife handled his
wife’s first delivery, a husband would save a guide for a male practioner at the second birth, and
recorded with satisfaction that this time there were no candles, and no ‘stimulating messes’.

It is now apparent that the seventeenth century mother’s viewpoint could conflict with that of the
midwife, even though the mother had chosen her own midwife. Such conflict would arise if the
birth was difficult. (pp. 142)

One story by Percival Willoughby: after the child’s head emerged, the aristocratic mother suffered
great pain, and called for his help. The mother wanted the midwife to make haste, but she refused.
(pp. 143)

In another delivery, Willoughby recalls that he was called only in an emergency – the child was
dead – and the mother ‘complained very sadly to me, how one of the midwives had afflicted her
through much pulling and stretching her body’. (pp. 143)

Mrs. Molyneux referred to them as ignorant creatures. (pp. 143)

There could be conflict between the mother and her gossips, since the decision to send for a male
practioner was sometimes taken collectively. (pp. 143)

Mother, gossips and midwives all had different viewpoints. For all that the childbirth ritual was a
collective female event and a collective female product, it was a structured process comprising
different roles. The midwife was the paid practioner. That was what she shared with her later
competitor, the man midwife. (p. 144)

A. L. Wyman, 'The surgeoness: the female practitioner of surgery 1400–1800', Medical

History, 28 (1984), pp. 22–41.

The midwives became figures of fun, and their lack of education became the reason for their
demise.

One of the biggest handicaps for women was the difficulty in acquiring a good education. When
universities were established, those with lay medical facilities did not encourage them. They were
unwelcome to the lay institutions and totally excluded from the universities administered by the
ecclesiastical authorities. (pp. 23)

The general education of girls, even of the upper class was restricted. The study of Latin, which was
essential, declined in the schools run by the nuns and died out in most convents in the fourteenth
century. (pp. 23)

In the early years of the eighteenth century, women continued to engage in medical and surgical
practice. The overseers of the poor continued to employ women to treat adults and children for
various disorders, although male apothecaries were being used much more. (pp. 37)

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Childbirth, Midwifery and the Medical Establishment

During the eighteenth century, the status and importance of surgeoness steadily declined. It is
evident that they were not taken seriously by the educated and sophisticated young people of the
middle classes who regarded them as figures of fun. (pp. 38)

The surgeoness could thrive at times when medical help was scarce and expensive, and also when
there was little to choose between the ministrations of the regular doctors and the unqualified.

Ann Giardina, Review: The Making of Man Midwifey by Adrian Wilson

Wilson argues that it was not the desire of medical men but the choices of mother’s that
transformed childbirth into a male medical speciality. (pp. 394)

Claims that women of early modern England were not passive victims either of their bodies or of
men, but active agents who made their own history. (pp. 394)

Helen King, Review: The Making of Man Midwifey by Adrian Wilson

In the 1660s, men midwives meant a man called in as a supplement in a difficulty birth, but in 1748,
it started to be used for a man who could replace the traditional midwife at a normal birth. (pp. 738)

He argues that the making of a midwife was the work of women. The emerging class of
fashionable, literature, leisured women whose men midwives in an attempt to separate themselves
from the dangers of childbirth that had hitherto acted as an agent uniting women of all classes. (pp.
738)

Adrian Wilson

The eighteenth century experienced a rise in male attendance. Men had been in attendance
before but it was unusual. Calls were made to men if it was expected the delivery would be tough.
Though, the midwives made these calls.

From the 1730s there was a sudden increase in male attendance in childbirth, and men-midwives
brought about an explosion of technical knowledge. (pp. 343)

The causes of this change were the forceps and fashion. The design of forceps were published in
1773, the instrument was taken up at once by male practioners. (pp. 343)

Fashion promoted the new man-midwifery, which began at the top of the social scale and spread
inexorably downwards as each social rank aped it betters. (pp. 343)

As to the social arrangements, childbirth in mid-eighteenth century England was routinely managed
not by male practioners buy by midwives, and it was usual for the birth to be attended by several
other women – ‘gossips’, who were variously the friends, relatives and neighbours of childbearing
mother. (pp. 344)

The dramatic effects of the publication of the forceps design create the impression that man-
midwifery was novel in the eighteenth century and that it was indeed forceps that promoted man
midwifery. (pp. 346)

Although male obstetric before the publication of the forceps were more common than had been
thought it, it was indeed unusual. The norm in childbirth was delivery by a midwife, and this
remained true at least up to the middle of the eighteenth century. (pp. 346)

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Childbirth, Midwifery and the Medical Establishment

The first dimension was that of timing. In an advance call, the practioner was summoned by the
mother to come and reside in her house at some point during her pregnancy, to advise her on her
diet and course of life, to remain until the birth itself, to be in attendance during the birth, and to
continue for some time afterwards to supervise her post partum recovery. An onset call summoned
the practitioner to the delivery as soon as labour commenced; an emergency call sent him only after
some serious difficulty had arisen. (pp. 349)

In the second dimension, we have to distinguish between booked and unbooked calls. All advance
calls were by definition booked; onset and emergency calls, by contrast, could be either booked or
unbooked. (pp. 349)

Our third dimension concerns the presence or absence of a midwife. In both advance and onset
calls, the male practioner could be called in addition to a midwife, or in lieu of a midwife. (pp. 349)

If a midwife was involved, the man’s place was to be on hand in case difficulty arose; thus a
further, subsidiary call was required to bring him into the delivery room itself. There was no
midwife, then the man’s task was to effect the actual delivery. As for emergency calls, these always
involved the prior attendance of a midwife. (pp. 350)

On the evidence of Willoughby’s and Smellie’s cases, it seems that both advance and onset calls
were usually made because the mother expected that the birth would be difficult. (pp. 351)

Thus male practice was very largely connected with abnormal birth or with the expectation of such
abnormality. (pp. 351)

It seems that whenever ‘booking’ was involved, it was done either by the mother herself or by her
husband. Second, and similarly, it was again the mother or husband who made ‘advance’ and
‘onset’ calls without a midwife. This, there is a further dimension in those ‘advance’ and ‘onset’
calls that were made with a midwife. (pp. 351)

Regarding difficult deliveries, it seems it was usually the midwife who made this decision. (pp. 351)

With regards to unbooked emergencies. There were several ‘calling agents’: the mother, her
husband, the midwife, the various women attending the birth, and finally people outside the
delivery room who knew the mother and were associated with given male practioner. (pp. 352)

In Derby, few of the emergency calls from midwives, and there are examples of midwives being
opposed to his being called. In London, it was the midwives themselves who usually called him.
(pp. 352)

For Willoughby, he saw 35 to 40 births per year. Willoughby had a big local reputation, was seated
in a country town, and practiced over a ten-mile radius, yet given the distribution of population and
the general restriction of his practice to emergency work, he could not have expected to attend as
many as 50 births year. (pp. 357)

The role of the forceps was primarily in emergency work; fashionable practice involved onset and
advanced calls. (pp. 362)

Adrian Wilson, The Making of the Man Midwife

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Childbirth, Midwifery and the Medical Establishment

Though there was a rise in the man midwife, the female counterpart was not displaced. Midwives
still made the calls to the men. Also, man midwives adopted female techniques.

By the mid 1740s, male medical involvement in childbirth had advanced – from surgery, delivering
dead babies, to man midwifery, delivering alive babies.

By the 1740s, the midwifery forceps had been published and hundreds of young men began to use
it. So, men were called in more swiftly into births.

New practices were contained within the old forms: man midwifery had not begun to displace the
female midwife. Normal delivery was still managed by midwives within the framework of the
traditional childbirth ritual.

Onset calls with a midwife had become increasingly common.

Men midwives had no ambition to replace the women, normal births were still assumed as a
woman’s domain.

Differences did occur amongst the male midwives and the female counter part: first, men thought
the placenta should be removed manually, as they were often called to do this. The women, on the
other hand, thought it should be removed naturally.

Women thought that following the birth of the first twin, the second will be natural, but the men
thought that the second twin should be delivered manually.

Male practioners advocated the podalic version, instead of the cephalic version. They saw it as
impractical. Ultimately, this practice led them to dominate the emergency calls.

Despite the technical advances, the man midwife was contained within the same social forms –
‘paths to childbirth’. Even though the men were called much quicker, their province was still the
delivery of difficult births. Though, the threshold for ‘difficulty’ declined.

Starting in about 1748, there emerged a different type of midwife – booked onset calls for the men,
in lieu of the female midwife.

Smellie, Bracken and Willoughby experienced these before, but they were rare. They became
increasingly common in areas such as London and Chelmsford.

Smellie notes that he began to get calls from family and friends of the mother who were worried the
labour may be dangerous.

Therefore, he accumulated more experience in natural birth.

Prior to 1720, male surgeons were called in by the midwife to deliver a dead child.

Between 1720 and 1740, male midwifes were called in to deliver baby by the midwife.

Post 1940, they were called in to deliver the child in lieu of the midwife.

Medical men had accepted without question the traditional birthing ritual – hot, darkened room;
caudle; gossips; swaddling. But, they began to crystallise the practice.

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Childbirth, Midwifery and the Medical Establishment

Men began to adopt new techniques as they gained more experience, with regards to the placenta
and twins, they altered their practice.

Some places experienced the watershed around 1750, everywhere though. We find instances of the
old and new type of midwifery.

John Burton of York and Benjamin Pugh of Chelmsford both began as emergency practioners. But
in the 1750s, their practices took different forms: Burton resembled the man of the previous
generation, working only in emergency cases, whilst Pugh began working on normal births. In
1954, he delivered 2,000 women.

Hunter was receiving booked onset calls in lieu of the midwife – the new form of practice that
supervened around 1750.

Hunter advised his students not to do anything without the approval of gossips. Must also be ready
to take advice from the experiences nurses.

Hunger was not in favour of surgical intervention (forceps). He believed instead that nature should
take its course.

This reflects Hunter had a sense of what mothers themselves required and expected from those who
delivered babies. Midwives had traditionally used manual methods, male practioners used
instrumented. To turn away from instruments was to become more of a midwife.

Childbirth had traditionally been kept under the collective control of women.

Observers claimed that midwives could not deal with difficult births, due to their limited skills, as
described by Willughby and Sarah Stone.

98% of births were normal. A midwife would only be able to deal with difficult births if they had
attended a large number of deliveries, but few midwives ever gained this experience. Generally
speaking, the number of deliveries for each midwife was 20 births a year, on average. In ‘great
towns’ and regional capitals the number was higher. Case load varied between 20 and 50.

But, Mary Hopkins of Wilton and Phoebe Crewe of Norwich delivered 200 children each year for
around 40 years. So they are likely to have been able to handle a difficult birth.

The midwife who practiced what we know call antenatal care, was important because childbirth and
the associated ritual were central in women’s lives. The popular ceremony of childbirth (gossips,
preparing room and caudle) helped maintain the collective culture of women. This culture gave the
midwife authority over the birth.

With very rare exceptions, seventeenth century male practioners only attended children as an
adjunct to the midwife. Willugby acted in lieu of a midwife in only 3 instances.

Male practice took a variety of forms, medical men were called to childbirth from five different
‘paths’: advance call, onset call, emergency call.

The dimension of anticipation involved a distinction between booked and un-booked,

Advance and onset calls came from mothers, or their husband. Emergency calls could come from
the mother, her husband, gossips or the midwife.

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Childbirth, Midwifery and the Medical Establishment

Advance calls could only be made by mothers of the gentry or merchant class, who had a large
house required for the live in male practioners. They must have earned large payments.

Onset calls came from a wider circle of patients – semi gentry of wives of clergymen and
professionals.

Most seventeenth century male practice in midwifery consisted of emergency calls. Over 70% of
cases Willughby included in his Observations were for these.

Even advance and onset calls were associated with mothers who had previously experience
difficulty or if they anticipated difficulty.

In emergency calls, in Willugby’s experience came a few days after the onset of labour. The task
was to save the mother – not the child.

Mothers were not afraid of childbirth in general, they were scared though of calling the male
practioner. Maternal fear was unusual and only arose when the birth became difficult, as evidence
by Alice Thornton’s diary.

In advance and onset calls, if the delivery was normal – the child would be delivered by the
midwife. Reinforcing that childbirth was the women’s domain, not the man’s.

Willugby describes one case, where when labour came upon one mother, he put the mother in the
hands of the midwife, and left the room. He was only asked the intervene when difficulty arose.

Turn of the seventeenth century, most country towns had their own surgeon to deliver difficult
births. In Taunton, Somerset, there was no man to carry out this role so the responsibility fell on
Sarah Stone. She had an unusually large case load, and she received training from her mother.

On some occasions, despite an obstructed birth, the child would be alive. And the surgeon would be
able to deliver the child using the forceps. This would have had a profound impact on the mother,
her husband and the gossips. Similar emergencies would emerge in the neighbourhood, and
attending the birth as a gossip may be a mother whose child was delivered using the forceps. In
such occasions, that mother would reassure the pregnant women that there is no cause for concern.
In some cases, the surgeon was called sooner. The male emergency practioner was therefore called
to deliver a living child and save the mother. Therefore, they became a ‘man-midwife’ for they were
to deliver birth. Whereas, they did not earlier.

Once the male practioner could deliver a living child – the boundary was broken between the men
and women.

The forceps man-midwife did not displace the midwife. Forceps man-midwifery was associated
with emergency work. The instrument did not confer on male practioners the role of acting in lieu
of the midwife. There became a new equilibrium between midwives and male practioners.

11