Some thoughts on bridging the gap between nurse – and direct-entry midwives

by Robbie Davis-Floyd

This article appears in Midwifery Today, March issue, 1999.
The author and Midwifery Today grant permission for its replication for educational purposes.
It is with dismay that I have listened, for the past five years or so, to direct-entry midwives criticizing nurse-midwives as “medwives” and “physician extenders,” and to nurse-midwives talking about professional direct-entry midwives as if they don’t know very much, and working in some states to pass exclusionary laws. Such behavior is a classic feature of oppressed groups who turn on each other instead of concentrating on fighting their oppressors. An oppressed group will tend to want to fight its battle for identity and survival against members of other, often similar, groups.