Ebook: Making Midwives Legal: Childbirth, Medicine, and the Law

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 United 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 (the first edition was published in 1985 under the title Regulating Birth) includes an updated preface that situates the themes of the book in the current debate over health care and midwifery, and epilogue that examines the major issues in the 1990s and comments on developments that have taken place over the past decade, and an updated 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.