Birth Happens Midwifery in the Santa Cruz Mountains

The American College of Nurse-Midwives (ACNM) is committed to creating a future that prioritizes diversity, equity, and inclusion and supports the continuing process to become an anti-racist organization. Speaking the truth on our history and the harm caused by it through ACNM’s denial, gaslighting, censorship, and exclusion, is the first step in long overdue restorative measures for our community of Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC), allowing us to promote inclusion, belonging, and a safe space for all midwives. Therefore, ACNM is issuing the following statement that acknowledges the harms caused by its previous actions and establishes a set of resolutions in response   We acknowledge that within the United States and the profession of midwifery:  White women, through actions associated with the concepts of white feminism and white motherhood, have actively upheld white supremacy, which is the foundation that undergirds the crisis of whiteness facing the College today. 

WOMEN IN MEDICINE 19TH CENTURY MIDWIVES Midwives In 19th Century America Childbirth in the American Colonies Childbirth in colonial America was a difficult and sometimes dangerous experience for a woman. Since the typical mother gave birth to between five and eight children, her lifetime chances of dying in childbirth ran as high as 1 in 8. Death in childbirth was sufficiently common that many colonial women regarded pregnancy with dread. Image: American pioneer birth scene Gustave Joseph Witkowski, 1887 In addition to her anxieties about pregnancy, an expectant mother was filled with apprehensions about the death of her newborn child. In the healthiest seventeenth century communities, one infant in ten died before the age of five. In less healthy environments, three children in ten died before their fifth birthday. 18th Century Midwives In colonial America, the typical woman gave birth to her children at home. While female relatives and neighbors clustered at her bedside to of

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