Mary Breckinridge

Paper Summary:

The history of maternity nursing in many ways echoes that of other types of nursing, although it is arguable that improvements in the quality of nursing care have had an even greater impact than improvements in other arenas of health-care. This paper examines one of the nurses who was instrumental in improving maternal health care through changes and improvements in maternity nursing, Mary Breckenridge, a nurse-midwife who helped to established a neonatal health-care that dramatically reduced the mortality rates of both mothers and infants.

From the Paper:

"Over the past century and a half, the maternity nurses who are the heirs to Breckinridge's reforms have been part of the process of defining birth in scientific terms. While this has certainly been advantageous in some ways, the view of birth as a dangerous medical condition has its own risks. Birth has been redefined as the province of women and women's knowledge and given over to the province of male doctors. Maternity nurses have helped to provide the kind of emotional support that was once so essential to midwifery."

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