Power and the Profession of Obstetrics.

Abstract

a special effort to avoid bias. He states, try to avoid speaking either for or for women as I outline my understanding of the history of obstetrics (p 13). Mr Arney adhered to this intention well. After introducing the history of obstetrics, Mr Arney notes some of the jockeying for power that occurred among midwives, general practitioners, and obstetric specialists. These battles resulted in obstetric specialists being fully in control of the field by World War II. Something happened at that time in our history that brought about a change in the deliv¬ ery of obstetric care. The author believes that this change occurred because of several trends in the field of medicine. One of these trends was the move toward childbirth. According to Mr Arney, natural childbirth involved more than just a demand that birth be treated differently. He points out that at this time Dr Grantly Dick Reed was urging that a partu¬ rient woman be positioned differently so that she could see her obstetrician face to face. Another trend in medicine was the monitoring method of patient care. Attention was turned to the fetus as a patient instead of as a specialized maternal organ, present only during pregnancy. No longer was the dictum care of the mother and let the fetus take care of itself adequate for the profession. Monitoring was like the two-faced Greek god, Janus: while