Female Midwife Research Articles

A Poisoning Case Involving Gymnopus dryophiloides (Agaricomycetes).

Recently, mushroom poisoning is becoming one of the most serious food safety problems in China, especially in Yunnan province. However, there is insufficient information on many poisoning incidents, including mushroom information, identification and poisoning symptoms etc. In October 2022, a female midwife in Yunnan province consumed a wild mushroom twice. Detailed epidemiological investigation and mushroom identification were performed in this report. Based on morphological and phylogenetic analysis, the suspected mushroom was identified as Gymnopus dryophiloides (Omphalotaceae, Agaricomycetes). The victim reported nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, stomachache, accompanied by dizziness, headache, drowsiness, chest tightness, shortness of breath, palpitation, and weakness. The incubation period was approximately 30 min. After the victim's own vomiting, the symptoms began to subside for about an hour. Up to date, there are no detailed reports of poisoning in G. dryophiloides. In conclusion, it is the first detailed poisoning report of G. dryophiloides in the world.

Outline of the history of obstetricsuntil the 20th century

The profession of midwife is one of the oldest professions in the history of mankind. Its background has been shaped by instinctive human behavior since ancient times, gradually enriching itself thanks to the constant demands of life in a slow process of mastering and observing the surrounding nature. This knowledge was constantly deepened and disseminated more and more widely, giving oral instructions to subsequent generations. It should be emphasized that the first fruits of obstetrics are the midwife - self-taught, who devoted herself to this activity spontaneously. She rushed to the aid of a woman in labor and passed on the experience gained to her successors, often daughters, through demonstrations and oral transmission. It must not be forgotten that these were women with inborn abilities, who, learning in the school of life, through accurate and correct reasoning, achieved extensive experience and proficiency in obstetrics.
 The aim of this study is to outline the history of the profession, or rather the vocation, of a midwife, from antiquity, through the Middle Ages, to the beginning of the twentieth century of modern time. Today, in civilized countries, children are born in hospitals where they are given special care. However, there are countries where this hospital care is lacking and the help of a female midwife is absolutely indispensable.

Phantoms in the Classroom: Midwifery Training in Enlightenment Europe

Phantoms in the Classroom: Midwifery Training in Enlightenment Europe

The One-Sex Body on Trial: The Classical and Early Modern Evidence

Health & History, 2014. 16/2 153 Book Reviews Helen King. The One-Sex Body on Trial: The Classical and Early Modern Evidence (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013). ISBN 9781409463351 (HB). ix + 286pp. Bearded ladies, hermaphroditism, and transgendered women are all subjects addressed in Professor Helen King’s The One-Sex Body on Trial: The Classical and Early Modern Evidence. King’s text serves as an explicit challenge to the enduring authority of Thomas Laqueur’s ‘one-sex’ and ‘two-sex’ models, as espoused in his 1990 book Making Sex. Laqueur posited that the prevailing medical view of sexual difference, from antiquity to the late seventeenth century, was the Galenic conception that ‘Women are but Men turn’d Out-side in’ (p.10). Focusing on the classical and early modern periods, King contends that medical thinking on sexual difference was so diverse and complex during these timeframes that to isolate one model as dominant would be an oversimplification. Her work makes clear that Laqueur’s ‘one-sex’ model was but one idea propagated by classical and early modern medical theorists. King also rejects Laqueur’s secondary argument, that women and men were not recognised as fundamentally sexually different until the late seventeenth century. She analyses classical and early modern medical treatises, and explores the retellings of two classical stories of the sexed body, to show that the refutation of the ‘one-sex’ discourse, and the transition to the ‘two-sex’ model, occurred as early as the sixteenth century. TheOne-SexBodyisdividedintothreeparts.Thefirstpartengages in a dialogue with Laqueur’s analysis of classical and early modern medical and scientific works. King’s aim in this section is to show how Laqueur’s ‘selective’ use of a limited sample of evidence led to the misconception that the ‘one-sex’ body was the only expression of sexual difference. She makes a compelling argument. By drawing on a wider scope of evidence than Laqueur and closely reading his key sources, such as Galen and Vesalius, King successfully shows that even the major proponents of the ‘one-sex’ model diverge from this idea. In contrast to Laqueur, King refers not only to the canonical texts of the ‘great men’ of history and science, but supplements her argument with lesser known works, and even incorporates a female perspective, in the form of Jane Sharpe’s 1671 midwifery guide. King provides clear evidence that the pure form of the ‘one-sex’model had 154 BOOK REVIEWS been both explicitly rejected by French physician Andre du Laurens in 1593, and was subject to numerous challenges, including Caspar Bauhin in 1604 and Jane Sharpe in 1671, prior to the late seventeenth century. The second and third parts of this text depart from Laqueur’s method of analysis, instead relying on two classical stories to track changing attitudes, from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, towards the sexed body. The two stories consulted are that of Phaethousa and Agnodice. Phaethousa was a woman who had previously borne children but, after her husband left, ceased menstruation, and ‘grew hairy all over, she grew a beard, [and] her voice became harsh’(p.20).Agnodice, conversely, was considered the first female midwife. She was raised when women and slaves were forbidden to practice medicine. To counter this problem, Agnodice dressed as a man and trained under the doctor Herophilus, incurring the jealously of male physicians. She is ultimately put on trial and forced to reveal her true gender. Using these two stories, as opposed to the typical method of comparing medical and scientific treatises, offers a new and original perspective on the pervasive cultural ideas surrounding the sexed body. While this method may be considered dubious, the extensive evidential support King provides, and the interesting manner in which she conveys her ideas, results in an effective piece of academic literature. King’s text is by no means the first critique of Laqueur’s work, but it is the most comprehensive. She succeeds in convincing the reader that the ‘one-sex’ model was not the sole extant theory on sexual difference, and that it was probably not the most dominant theory either, in the classical and early modern periods. However, there is still merit in Laqueur’s ‘one-sex...

Depression among women with obstetric fistula, and pelvic organ prolapse in northwest Ethiopia

BackgroundThe prevalence of depression is not well studied among women with pelvic floor disorders. Hence, this study aimed to determine the prevalence of depression and its associated factors among women with pelvic floor disorders.MethodsA cross-sectional study was conducted among 306 women with one or more of the advanced pelvic floor disorders who attended at the gynaecologic outpatient clinic of Gondar university referral hospital in the six months data collection period. Women who complained of urinary or faecal incontinence or protruding mass per vagina were assessed and staged accordingly. Eligible women i.e. those with advanced pelvic organ prolapse or obstetric fistula were included consecutively. A structured questionnaire was used to obtain socio-demographic data and medical histories for all consenting women. Interviews were done by a female midwife nurse. Depression measures were obtained using the Beck’s Depression Inventory (BDI) tool administered by the midwife nurse after intensive training. Data were entered into a computer using Epi Info version 3. 5.3, and then exported to SPSS version 20 for analysis. Multiple logistic regressions were fitted and Odds ratios with 95% confidence intervals were calculated to identify associated factors.ResultsOf the 306 women interviewed, 269 had advanced pelvic organ prolapse (stages 3 and 4), 37 had obstetric fistula. All four women (100%) with both faecal and urinary incontinence, 97.0% those with urinary incontinence due to obstetric fistula and 67.7% of those with advanced pelvic organ prolapse (stages 3 and 4) had symptoms of depression. Depression was significantly associated with age 50 years or older (P < 0.01), marital status (P < 0.05), history of divorce (p < 0.01), self perception of severe problem (P < 0.05), and having stage 3 pelvic organ prolapse (P < 0.01).ConclusionWomen with advanced pelvic organ prolapse, and obstetric fistula had high prevalence of depressive symptoms. A holistic management approach, including mental health care is recommended for women having such severe forms of pelvic floor disorders.

Intensity of female preference for call source level in midwife toads Alytes cisternasii and A. obstetricans

AbstractWe address the question of whether female preference exerts selection on male calling energy (souce level). We investigate whether female midwife toads express a preference between advertisement calls that have different source levels but that reach them with similar intensities (due to differences in distance). Females were presented with pairs of recordings of identical synthetic calls, recorded at the same location in the field site, and reaching the microphone at similar sound levels (69 dB peak SPL). Stimulus 'Hi source level' was recorded two meters away from the sound source but emitted with higher sound intensity, and stimulus 'Low source level' was recorded one meter away from the source but emitted with lower source level. We use a protocol of 'playback setpoints' for tests with no a priori expectations. We did not find evidence of female preference for source level in either species. Alytes obstetricans females reversed their choice when differences in intensity were lower, suggesting lower selectivity during the approach phase. We conclude that any selection on male call intensity is unlikely to occur, possibly being severely limited by calling location (male–female distance) and by transmission conditions.

Dame Hilda Lloyd: First President of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists

Since earliest times, women have been looked after by women in their confinements. By the Middle Ages the profession of the female midwife, often an experienced older woman, was well recognised. The service of a male doctor was often frowned upon. Indeed, in 1522 a Dr Wertt of Hamburg was burned at the stake for attending a delivery dressed as a woman.

The control of childbirth: women versus medicine through the ages

When childbirth moved from women's homes into hospitals, women lost more than they had bargained for. As the event became increasingly male-dominated and medically oriented, women's control of the experience all but vanished. Worse, recent clinical trials have demonstrated that most modern interventions and technological practices have not improved delivery outcomes and are not necessary in normal labor and birth.From pre-classical to present times, this work describes childbirth practices as they have developed through the ages. The author describes and critiques the evolution of modern midwifery and obstetrics, focusing especially on how, why, and when the process of childbirth became an increasingly sterile, male-dominated, and medically oriented event.Each chapter focuses on a different period, from the age of the female midwife (who oversaw the childbirth process for several centuries), through the origins of modern obstetrics and gynecology, and finally, to the increasing influence of technology in the practices that have prevailed for most of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Determinants of Skilled Birth Attendant Utilization in Afghanistan: A Cross-Sectional Study

We sought to identify characteristics associated with use of skilled birth attendants where health services exist in Afghanistan. We conducted a cross-sectional study in all 33 provinces in 2004, yielding data from 617 health facilities and 9917 women who lived near the facilities and had given birth in the past 2 years. Only 13% of respondents had used skilled birth attendants. Women from the wealthiest quintile (vs the poorest quintile) had higher odds of use (odds ratio [OR] = 6.3; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 4.4, 8.9). Literacy was strongly associated with use (OR = 2.5; 95% CI = 2.0, 3.2), as was living less than 60 minutes from the facility (OR = 1.5; 95% CI = 1.1, 2.0) and residing near a facility with a female midwife or doctor (OR = 1.4; 95% CI = 1.1, 1.8). Women living near facilities that charged user fees (OR = 0.8; 95% CI = 0.6, 1.0) and that had male community health workers (OR = 0.6; 95% CI = 0.5, 0.9) had lower odds of use. In Afghanistan, the rate of use of safe delivery care must be improved. The financial barriers of poor and uneducated women should be reduced and culturally acceptable alternatives must be considered.

Female Iberian midwife toads (Alytes cisternasii) use call order to reach particular males in dense choruses

Call-timing mechanisms among anuran males calling within choruses are frequent, and previous studies have indicated that midwife toad females respond preferentially to these mechanisms. The results of multi-speaker tests performed here with midwife toads suggest that the temporal order of male calls within a dense chorus can determine the ability of females to locate the most attractive calls (in this instance the low-frequency calls emitted by larger males). When call emission was regular in the multi-speaker tests, most females chose the most attractive option (i.e., the speaker emitting the lower-frequency call). When call emission was not regular, however, most females failed to reach the most attractive option, selecting the speaker that emitted immediately after that emitting the most attractive call. These results support the idea that there may be benefits for smaller males that emit their less attractive calls close to those of larger, more attractive males in dense choruses. Less attractive males could exploit the attractiveness of nearby larger males calls by alternating their calls in an unordered sequence to reach receptive females.

Female Preference Intensities on Different Call Characteristics and Symmetry of Preference Above and Below the Mean in the Iberian Midwife Toad Alytes cisternasii

AbstractThe intensity of female preference for call characteristics is measured in two‐speaker playback tests with female Iberian midwife toads ‘Alytes cisternasii’ using an experimental design that allows quantitative comparisons across characters. Female preferences do not appear to be symmetrical above and below the population mean, female preference being more efficient at discriminating against low quality competing males that at selecting optimum males among good ones. Female preference is significantly more effective selecting males calling at higher call rates (a highly variable call characteristic probably related to the physical state of the male) rather than selecting calls of low dominant frequency (a characteristic of low intra‐individual variation, related to male size and age).

An Introduction to Eighteenth-Century Fiction: Raising the Novel by John Skinner (review)

172 Reviews identity without nationality' is arguably about society's masks, social mobility, and true value. And the names ofthe men in Cowley's Bold Stroke are mixed up (p. 169). Anderson opens her work with a textual description of a recent cartoon, which would have been better reproduced than described?or better still, replaced by a lively caricature of the period. In an attempt to relate these plays to the present, she entertainingly associates them with the cinema subgenre of 'chick flick',listing among others Thelma and Louise and Bridget Jones' Diary, which are also concerned with female characters who 'renegotiate the popular romance plot' (p. 206). Royal College of Music Angela Escott An Introduction toEighteenth-Century Fiction: Raising theNovel. By John Skinner. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave. 2001. xi + 3i7pp. ?16.99. ISBN 0-33377625 -9. In his preface to An Introduction toEighteenth-Century Fiction, John Skinner suggests his book will be beneficial not only to those students who have not yet read their set eighteenth-century texts, but also 'to those who never will'. This is an unduly modest claim. Skinner has written a concise, intelligent, and engaging introduction for undergraduates, which should motivate all but the most uninterested to read the eighteenth-century novels that he recommends. Skinner commences with introductory chapters on the 'Canon' and 'Gender and Genre', then devotes one chapter to Richardson and Fielding respectively. The remainder of the book is devoted to chapter-length analyses of pairs of authors: Defoe and Behn, Sterne and Smollett, Lennox and Burney, and Radcliffe and Godwin. The final chapter returns to the one-author study, with an extended treatment of Austen. As well as examining the lives and writings of these eleven authors, Skinner explores the Gothic, the novel of sensibility, travel writing, the novel in letters, the picaresque, and quixotism. Skinner's approach reinforces close analysis with wide reading. In a period when many student courses stress the 'English' aspect to the fiction of the period, Skinner helpfully explains the influence of continental writers upon the English novel. He also makes frequent allusion to rarer texts, encouraging students to use online literature databases such as Chadwyck Healey to explore writers like Francis Coventry, Mary Davys, and Frances Brooke. Skinner proposes that his overall plan is to track the 'feminization of the novel', from the journalistic mode of Defoe to the free indirect discourse of Austen. This approach offers an admirable clarity, as Skinner explores the female voice or the representation of women, while also examining the novels in a general context. Yet the concluding chapter on Austen sometimes veers close to suggesting that the storyof eighteenth-century fiction is a progress towards a feminocentric 'realist' novel. There are also some contentious readings, such as the suggestion that free indirect discourse is a 'gendered stylistic marker', an inherently feminine form. Another example is his reading of Mrs Shandy's debates over whether to employ a male or female midwife for the birth of Tristram. Skinner sees the episode as an allegory for the birth of the novel, usurped from the traditional female hands of Behn and Haywood by male obstetricians such as Sterne and Richardson. This imaginative interpretation requires some qualification for readers looking foran idea to reproduce in an essay or exam. Equally controversial is Skinner's confessed aversion to exploring 'historical back? ground' such as the Jacobite rebellions or Napoleonic Wars. This is a decision presumably made on the grounds of economy, but it is difficultto escape history entirely in the discussion of eighteenth-century fiction,and terms such as 'Tory' and ' Jacobin' recur without sufficienthistorical explanation. MLR, 99.1, 2004 173 There are moments when the text is less than user-friendly. There is a surfeit of italics in the early chapters, denoting titles, unfamiliar terms, emphasis, and stages of argument alike. A glossary would have been most useful, for some theoretical words such as 'hyponimic' or 'hypernimic' occur without the careful explanation that they require, whereas some like 'extradiegetic' are not explained until their second mention. On the whole, Skinner's style is clear and energetic, and his book is, above all, highly readable. He has succeeded in escaping many of the...

Reproductive stage and phonotactic preferences of female midwife toads ( Alytes cisternasii )

We studied the phonotactic response of Alytes cisternasii females at different reproductive stages (before and after oviposition) toward two male call characteristics (call rate and frequency) differing in variability, as well as in the strength of female preference. We measured female phonotactic response over several repetitions by means of the frequency of selection of the population-preferred alternative, consistency of choice, frequency of reciprocal calling activity, frequency of null trials, and average approach time. Our results showed that female mating preferences in A. cisternasii are highly influenced by the variability of male call characteristics, while only female motivation is related to reproductive stage.

Double stimulation of the inner ear organs of an anuran species (Alytes cisternasii) with simple tonal advertisement calls

Midwife toads present one of the simplest calls in anurans, with the whole energy concentrated in a single band without frequency modulation. The tuning curves of the Iberian midwife toads Alytes cisternasii show the typical bimodal pattern in anurans, with two best excitatory frequencies at 0.412 kHz (corresponding to the amphibian papilla) and at 1.358 kHz (corresponding to the basilar papilla and matching the male call frequency). In this study, the hypothesis that complex calls arose in anurans because they were inherently more attractive to females, since they provided greater acoustic stimulation, was tested. However, our results indicate that splitting the call energy to stimulate both inner ear organs simultaneously, the male call is not more attractive to female midwife toads, but sometimes renders it unattractive. The biological role of the amphibian papilla is discussed in ecological and evolutionary terms.

TEMPORAL ENCODING OF INFORMATION IN THE ADVERTISEMENT CALL OF THE IBERIAN MIDWIFE TOAD (ALYTES CISTERNASII). THE IMPORTANCE OF RISE TIME

In order to test the relative importance of the beginning (rise time) and end of the advertisement call in call localization and call preference with female Iberian midwife toads we performed two-speaker playback experiments with synthetic stimuli. In the first set of tests the alternative stimuli were the initial (rise time) or the final part (fall time) of a male call (abutting, or antiphonally). In the second set of tests, two alternative calls were presented differing in the dominant frequency of the initial part of the call or the final part of the call. In the first set of tests, the preferred stimulus was always the first one presented, independently of the shape of the rise time, which seemed to be unimportant for female choice. The second set of tests did not yield a conclusive answer about the relative importance of the rise time of the call but suggest that further studies of this possibility may prove fruitful.

Behavioural patterns, preference, and motivation of female midwife toads during phonotaxis tests

During two-speaker phonotaxis tests performed with female midwife toads (Alytes obstetricans and A. cisternasii), the occurrence of behavioural patterns tentatively considered to be associated with entering amplexus and making a mate choice was noted. The individual repeatability of choice was assessed as a measurement of reliability of female preference, and the individual repeatability of response was assessed as a measurement of the degree of female motivation. The tests were grouped in two categories, spectral and temporal, according to the acoustic variable addressed in the test. Females selecting the alternative chosen less often by the population responded less often in phonotaxis tests and thus could be less motivated. Female repeatability was significant for temporal tests, but not for spectral tests. The observation of behavioural patterns during phonotaxis tests appears to be a useful complement to mate choice studies in anurans.

The functionality of female reciprocal calls in the Iberian midwife toad (Alytes cisternasii): female-female acoustic competition?

Female midwife toads (genus Alytes) emit highly variable reciprocal calls of unclear function prior to and during courtship. In some species, female-female competition, expressed as physical fighting, has been reported. Males of Majorcan midwife toads (Alytes muletensis) show phonotactic response to female calls, and females of Iberian midwife toads (Alytes cisternasii) respond differently according to the male call characteristics. In this study, I test the hypothesis of female-female acoustic competition as an additional function of female reciprocal calls. Playback tests indicate that female calls are not clearly involved in female acoustic competition in the Iberian midwife toad, therefore female calls could be directed at males rather than towards competitive females.

Signal discrimination by female Iberian midwife toads (Alytes cisternasii)

Coevolution between signaller and receiver is critical in signal evolution. Midwife toads produce simple calls that are similar among species. I conducted phonotaxis experiments with female midwife toads to study their tolerance to alteration of conspecific advertisement calls. Large alterations in amplitude and frequency modulation rendered the typical call unattractive while smaller alterations in both amplitude and frequency modulation did not influence call attractiveness. Frequency modulations appear to be weighted more heavily in discrimination tests. The evolutionary significance of female tolerance is discussed.

Female preference function related to precedence effect in an amphibian anuran (Alytes cisternasii): tests with non-overlapping calls

We quantified precedence effect (measured as female preference for the leading calls in an acoustic interaction between two males) with non-overlapping, simulated male calls presented with various phase relationships to female Iberian midwife toads (Alytes cisternasii) in two-speaker phonotaxis playback tests. The resulting information determines the shape of the female preference function for intercall delays. Females preferentially approached leading callers for most tested phase angles. We found a gradation in the degree to which females selected the leader. They tended to exert a strong preference for the leader in 30 test, and at higher phase angles, the overall preference was weaker and graded (the higher the phase angle, the lower the preference). Other parameters of female preference (latency and repeatability) also had a graded relationship with phase angle value. The sharp difference in probability of approach between 30 and 60 is consistent with a mechanism of male calling inhibition immediately after hearing a competitor’s call previously described in other taxa. In natural interactions, male A. cisternasii adjust the timing of their calls to a phase angle that provides a slight but significant advantage to the leading caller. Key words: Alytes cisternasii, anurans, calling, female preference, midwife toads, precedence effect. [Behav Ecol 13:149–153 (2002)]

On display: portraits of seventeenth-century French men-midwives.

This article examines the portraits of seventeenth-century French accoucheurs [men-midwives] that regularly appeared as the first plate in their obstetrical treatises, representing the body from which the text had issued. It argues that these visual documents were forms of strategic display in keeping with the wider goals of the treatises--to present their authors as cultivated, skilled, and vastly experienced experts in childbirth. At a time when the visual evaluation of character was commonplace within medical and other contexts, author portraits presented the public image of accoucheurs. Before analysing the idealized images of men-midwives. however, the article explores the author portrait of Louise Bourgeois, royal midwife to Queen Marie de Médicis from 1601-9, and the first French woman to write obstetrical treatises. Bourgeois is portrayed not only as an exceptional practitioner granted royal favour, but also as a hybrid figure whose identity fluctuated between efficient female midwife and educated theoretical writer. Portraits of accoucheurs represent the unstable identity and rather flexible 'masculinity' of male practitioners who likewise blurred gendered categories. Some images identify male practitioners exclusively with theoretical knowledge, while others associate them more directly with the maternal qualities traditionally admired in female midwives.