"Endeavoring to Carry On Their Work": The National Debate Over Midwives and Its Impact in Rhode Island, 1890-1940.

This article analyzes the national discourse over "the problem" of midwifery in medical literature and examines the impact of this dialogue on Rhode Island from 1890 to 1940. Doctors did not speak as a monolithic bloc on this "problem": some blamed midwives while others impugned poorly trained physicians. This debate led to curricula reform and to state laws to regulate midwifery. The attempt to eliminate midwives in the 1910s failed because of a shortage of trained obstetricians, and because of cultural barriers between immigrant and mainstream communities. A decrease in immigration, an increase in trained obstetricians, the growing notion of midwives as relics of an outdated past, and the emergence of insurance plans to cover "modern" hospital births led to a decline in midwifery.

"It's been a long road to acceptance": midwives in Rhode Island, 1970-2000.

A resurgence of midwifery came to Rhode Island in the 1970s. Midwives acted as modern health care professionals to conserve a traditional woman-centered birth, but the battle was long and arduous, from Dr. Ellen Stone attempting to eliminate midwives in the state in 1912 to doctors using the death of 2 home birth infants in the 1980s to undermine the growing presence of professional nurse-midwives in the state. Midwives prevailed when the state legislature passed measures in 1988 and 1990 increasing the power and authority of midwives, and when a federal grant in 1993 allowed the University of Rhode Island to open the first training program for nurse-midwives in the state.