Midwifery Studies 561 Module Three Theoretical and Philosophical Frameworks and Models of Maternity Care Midwifery is not so much a method of maternity care but involves both philosophical and ideological elements. The type of midwife a person becomes will depend on their personal attributes, and view of the world. An increasing number of Australian midwives have followed the lead of their British, New Zealand and US colleagues to stand outside the dominant paradigm of medicalised maternity care.
Many authors assume that all midwives ascribe to one model and all medical practitioners to another.
It is not as simple as this. There are many midwives who ascribe to a technocratic medical model of care and there are medical practitioners who believe that birth occurs within the broader context of women s lives. For them and for many midwives birth is more than a physiological process. It involves spiritual, psychological and social dimensions. Similarly, Davis-Floyd s authoritative research leading to the publication of Birth as an American Rite of Passage in 1992 showed that some women embrace technocratic obstetrics and indeed expect intervention.