Need for midwives continue in poorer districts
Lois Christie talks about
her 50 years in business
President and Publisher,
Vicki Schneps is joined by
current President, CEO and
Founder of Christie & Co. Salon
& Spa, Lois Christie,
Caribbean Life, January 24-30, 2020 43
By Terri Schlichenmeyer
The mailman’s come and
gone for today.
He never brings you much
anymore anyhow, just a few
bills and a card sometimes; now
and then, you might get a box
of something you purchased
and that’s always fun. You
know, though, that the mailman
doesn’t always bring you
what you ordered. As in “Delivered
by Midwives” by Jenny M.
Luke, someone else brings a
different kind of package.
At the turn of the last century,
if you were an African
American woman and you
were pregnant, you might
have struggled with more than
just labor: white doctors simply
didn’t have to treat Black
patients if they didn’t want to.
Because of this, “many African
American women in the Jim
Crow South had no expectation
of medical care for pregnancy
and childbirth.”
And so, as did their foremothers
when they were
slaves, laboring women relied
on “granny midwives” to
“catch” their babies. Doing
so was a natural conclusion,
says Luke, since both men and
women in early Black communities
were “authorized
to be healers,” which was “a
power that the white medical
establishment could not
undermine.”
What the white establishment
could do, however, was
to point out the high rate of
maternal and infant death in
Black communities. Because
of this, laws were made in the
1920s to regulate midwives of
all races. Classes on hygiene
and cleanliness were taught to
help improve the health of the
most poverty-stricken mothers
and their families, and
joining a “midwife club” was
mandatory.
As World War II began,
however, so did the perception
that not calling a doctor for
a baby’s birth indicated “an
indifferent negligence toward”
the child. Black mothers still
reached out to midwives but
it was increasingly becoming
“a marker of status” and more
“’scientific’” to have a hospital
birth. By 1970, and though
racism persisted and “hospital
care and medical expertise
were… not expectations of
African Americans...” nine out
of 10 Black women delivered
their babies in hospitals.
The tide is turning back
again, says author Jenny M.
Luke, but there are issues
— specifically, educational
requirements for professional
midwives have become steeper,
which can lead to questions
of affordability. Still, in
“Delivered by Midwives,” she
shows a continued need for
midwives, especially in poorer
communities — though getting
to that point here can
sometimes feel a lot like
labor.
Luke moves her history
at a good pace before repetition
forces everything to slow
down, then it speeds up again,
so things move quickly inside
this book – and then they don’t.
We’re treated to painful, wincing
tales of past midwives and
what their patients endured,
and those things might make
you scream before you hurry
up-and-wait for relevantbut
scholarly information that
slows the process down. It
ends in a somewhat-frazzling,
acronym-laden whoosh.
That doesn’t make this
a bad book – it makes this
informative and interesting,
good for students and prospective
midwives, but not a
curl-up-by-the-fire something
to read. Still, if it’s the kind of
medical, African American, or
feminist history you’re looking
for, “Delivered by Midwife”
is the total package.
“Delivered by Midwives:
African American Midwifery
in the Twentieth-
Century South” by Jenny
M. Luke
c.2018, University Press
of Mississippi $30.00 /
higher in Canada
193 pages
Book cover of “Delivered by Midwives” by Jenny M. Luke.
On this edition of Power
Women, Schneps President
and Publisher, Vicki Schneps
is joined by current President,
CEO and Founder of Christie &
Co. Salon & Spa, Lois Christie,
who talks about the steps she
took in starting her own salon
in Queens. Lois talks about
her 50-year history as a salon
owner and the challenges she’s
faced throughout her career.
She also gave listeners advice
and tips on how to be successful
when it comes to owning
your own business. Cheers to
50 years, Lois Christie! Listen
to this and our other podcasts
at podcasts.schnepsmedia.com
and download wherever podcasts
are found!
Listen and Enjoy!
/podcasts.schnepsmedia.com
