Educational Media Reviews Online

This documentary about the profession of midwifery provides not only the facts about what midwives do, but succeeds in capturing the essence of what it means to be a midwife. Throughout the program, ten different midwives speak about their careers, together with several women who have used midwives for their pregnancy, labor and delivery.

Modern midwives can be nurse-midwives or midwives that have attended midwifery school, both following a specific educational path to becoming certified. Others have learned their craft the traditional way, handed down from generation to generation. Midwives work in a variety of settings including birth centers, hospitals, and attending home births.

The midwives interviewed almost universally state that the most important thing is the pregnant woman, and that they are more holistically involved with that woman's health than an OB/GYN physican can ever be. A midwife is an expert in normal pregnancy, normal labor and normal delivery. That's not to say that they are not trained to handle emergencies, they are, and good midwives will have an established relationship with physicians in case they are needed.

Midwives. A Living Tradition provides a close, balanced, and intimate look at the world of midwifery. It stresses that midwives are involved in women's health on a global basis from contraception to birth to gynecological care. Midwives allow women to deliver their young and many of them describe their job as "catching babies." Every midwife in the program expressed her joy and reverence at being part of seeing a new life come into the world - no matter how many times they have seen it, it never fails to thrill them. It is this emotional and spiritual aspect of their work that permeates the program and communicates the depth of their involvement with their patients.

Considering the variety of places the video was shot (hospitals, homes, birth centers), the technical quality of the film is very good. It should be noted that actual births are shown in these different settings. A highly recommended program for college and university nursing collections or even career counseling libraries. The 70-minute length may limit it being shown in its entirety for classroom purposes.