Nurse-Midwives Reach Out

With the elimination of traditional midwives, many poor urban and rural women lost access to care. A new kind of practitioner, the nurse-midwife, emerged. The Frontier Nursing Service, established by Mary Breckinridge in 1925, deployed nurses on horseback to serve Kentucky families. In the early 20th century, as states put licensure requirements in place, nurses and nurse-midwives began to oversee and in many instances replace traditional midwives.

Ettinger, L. E. (2006). Nurse-midwifery: The birth of a new American profession. Columbus: Ohio State University Press.