Quote Originally Posted by Duck on Wheels
BTW, regarding the midwife/nurse title thread ... In Norway all hospital birth clinics are staffed with midwives. Doctors come through on rounds or when a midwife calls them, but they are secondary. Most birthing women deal pretty much only with the midwives. All municipalities are also required to have a midwife service for prenatal care, and some also have private midwife practitioners who offer home birthing. In the Netherlands, midwife-attended home births are standard, unless the midwife triages you to a hospital. And our few male midwives have chosen to keep the title as it is, because of the established honor of it.
Many European countries function this way. It's certainly a more prudent use of health care dollars. My favorite word for midwife is the French, sagefemme, or wise woman! I learned it when I was in France visiting my cousin, struggling to converse with a train conductor in a mix of Spanish, English, and my very limited French. I said I was a "partera", an "obstetrice", and he said, "Ahhh! Vous et une sage-femme!" I loved that. "Ah, oui!", I replied, sagely.