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Rural midwifery and the sense of difference

Abstract:

In New Zealand from the late 1960s the visits from the Maternity Services Committee to maternity facilities began the inexorable changes that led to a fully regionalized rural maternity service. Increased surveillance and compliance requirements in the wake of these changes accelerated the rate of rural maternity hospital closures. Throughout the ensuing decades midwives in rural areas have maintained their distinct rural identity while working to maintain a rural birthplace option for women. This identity is primarily founded on their expertise and confidence to support well women to birth at distance from secondary services. They are also firmly enmeshed in their communities and express a sense of both physical and perceptual difference from urban colleagues. Nevertheless the process of regionalization continues in subtle and complex forms driven by a mix of social, scientific and bureaucratic imperatives. Thus midwives and women in rural areas are challenged on a daily basis in their efforts to preserve a viable rural birth option.

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historical rural care, rural birth options, rural midwifery