stop posting about (ack) credentials, that is... but again, I want to
caution those of you living in North America that the case of midwifery
there is a big anomaly in a worldwide context.  In the rest of the
industrialized world, people know what midwives are and there is widespread
agreement about the definition thereof.  Midwives are licensed by public
regulatory bodies in nearly all industrialized countries and in a good many
developing ones, again, with the same definition in all.
Direct entry midwives would not be the same as lay midwives in my book
(apropos Chris Hafner-Eaton's post on that).  Direct entry means entering
the field without going through some other allied profession first.  Lay
means empirically trained, in the best cases by apprenticeship to a
practicing midwife.  The first describes midwives in Denmark, the
Netherlands and some of the midwives in Britain.  The second describes
midwives in some states in the US and possibly in other countries though
none in Europe, as virtually *all* European midwives are formally trained to
meet the definition agreed upon internationally by FIGO, ICM and WHO.  I am
not well-informed enough about the licensure situation in Canada to say
anything about it here.
Sorry for harping on this.  I am weary of people from N. America asking me
about the interesting 'alternative' system of birth where I live and
practice.  There is nothing 'alternative' about it.  Everyone in the Nordic
countries is attended by a midwife in labor unless they hide in a cave or
give birth en route to a maternity ward.  We are the mainstream.  It is the
N.American 'system' of birth which constitutes a radically 'alternative'
departure from the notion that birth is a normal phenomenon in the life of a
woman, and places birth in the domain of physicians.  Such medicalization
seems also to affect breastfeeding negatively, go figure.
We (midwives) like to think of ourselves as guardians of normal birth, and
for me that extends to the establishment of lactation.  I know how to
recognize when birth deviates from normal, and at which point the deviation
is so great that I need to involve the skills of others.  In between those
points there are a lot of things I can do on my own authority.  So, too,
with consulting about lactation.  I am an IBCLC but in much of what I do, I
use the skills gained as a peer counsellor or as a midwife.  They were
instrumental in my achieving IBCLC status too.
very tired and going to bed now
Rachel Myr, Norway

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