From the home midwife to the hospital midwife

midwives from Basel city, Baselland and Uri from 1870 to 1960

Until the 20th century, midwives were valued by women and their families as confidants and experts. In the course of the first half of the 20th century, however, home births overseen by midwives decreased significantly while hospital births, which were the responsibility of doctors, gradually became more prevalent. In my research project, I examine this cultural transformation from the perspective of the midwives. The focus is on the interaction of midwives with the three central actors of this change: the medical professionals, cantonal authorities, and the local com-munities. The period from 1870 to 1960 is chosen for this investigation. The project takes a comparative approach on an urban-rural axis. Three German-speaking cantons of Switzerland are examined in depth: Basel-Stadt as a typical urban canton with a rapid increase in hospital births, Basel-Landschaft as a rural canton (close to a city) also with an early substantial increase in hospital births, and Uri as a region remote from urban infrastructure where hospital births were rare until the 1940s. The analysis is guided by the question of the social proximity between the midwives and the women of these different regions.