OGT DAILY Day Two Hundred and Forty Nine MIDWIVES

Both of my babies - now adults - were born under the care of midwives.  I was lucky that way.  No complications; quick and efficient both - the only incident being a chord wrapped around one of their necks necessitating a rapid intervention by the midwife to reach inside (me! - ouch) and speed things along plus a bit of oxygen to pink the baby up, on arrival, after the stress.  Neither I nor the baby were the worse for the wear, but we could have been had it not been for the midwife's experience and knowledge and what she could do with her hands.  Not that doctor's aren't sometimes necessary, but there were none present in that room and had they been  might have been whisked off to the operating room and would now have a big scar across my stomach.   We have midwives in the family.  My sister-in-law Jill is one of the leading lay midwifes in the country - meaning she has non-medical, but traditional training.  All of her children and grandchildren were delivered at home.  My husband's cousin Suzanne is a nurse midwife and works at a birthing center.   My father and all of his sibling were born at home via a midwife in Belgium.  My mother's mother was alone in her kitchen in the Bronx and gave birth to her two children there so the story goes.

I've been enjoying the Netflix series "Call the Midwife" where all of these various scenarios play out.
It's about birthing babies to be sure but also about a history of women's health and reproductive rights and poverty and the rise of national health in Britain.  All timely subjects at this moment.