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Midwifery in the Netherlands: vestige or vanguard?
DeVries, R. Midwifery in the Netherlands: vestige or vanguard? Medical Anthropology: 2001, 20, 277-311
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The midwifery system of the Netherlands, where nearly one-third of births occur at home, is sidely admired by birth activists. Why has the Netherlands maintained this way of birthing babies when all other European countries have shifted to hospital-based maternity care? In this article, the societal forces are examined - both structural and cultural - that allowed the Dutch to hold on to a way of delivering maternity services that other modernizing nations discarded earlier in the first half of the 20th century. (aut.ref.)
The midwifery system of the Netherlands, where nearly one-third of births occur at home, is sidely admired by birth activists. Why has the Netherlands maintained this way of birthing babies when all other European countries have shifted to hospital-based maternity care? In this article, the societal forces are examined - both structural and cultural - that allowed the Dutch to hold on to a way of delivering maternity services that other modernizing nations discarded earlier in the first half of the 20th century. (aut.ref.)