The NP was a Nurse-Practitioner, not a CNM. As for her experience, I know she mentioned that she’d been working in OB for over 30 years. She remembers working in maternity wards during twilight sleep. We discussed how when she first started OB, women were still restrained with wrist and ankle restraints while in labor.

Yes, the treatment of women was barbaric back then. I don’t believe it is any less barbaric now. We’ve only replaced the shackles with chemically induced paralysis, and managed to sell it as a “good thing”.

Pregnancy can be such a vulnerable time – it’s so essential that we change the culture of birth so that these stories become a thing of the past.

There were several decades when mothers across the United States (and other first-world nations) were given medications so they would forget their entire labors and left alone to labor. This cultural phenomenon has left us with a population of people who fear birth – both patients and some providers. This leaves pregnant women very vulnerable to abuse. I see it as part of my job as a continuing midwife to pursue change in this area.