Evidence map›Paper›PMID 19436438›Full record

ArticleThe Journal of perinatal education2008

Where have all the midwives gone?

Phyllis L Brodsky

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in The Journal of perinatal education, 2008. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
4citing papers in PubMed, 1 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

4 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.

  1. Pooled it
  2. Barriers to Rural Midwifery: An Integrative Review.Journal of advanced nursing · 2025
    Review
  3. Article
  4. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

1 author.

Phyllis L BrodskyPHYLLIS BRODSKY has been a nurse for 50 years and an educator for over 20 years, having served as an obstetric nurse and educator in hospital settings and on several university faculties. She taught childbirth education classes for 20 years. She has been a member of the Maryland Nurses Association (MNA) since 1979, Past President of MNA, District 4, from 2002 to 2006, and a member of the MNA Continuing Education Provider Committee since 1992. She is also the author of several articles in journals and other publications. Her most recent publication is The Control of Childbirth: Women Versus Medicine Through the Ages (McFarland & Company).

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

In past centuries, only women attended women in childbirth. Birthing women were in control, choosing who should attend them and where and how to give birth. Men were usually excluded unless they were needed for their strength and their tools if labor was obstructed. Eventually, with the medicalization of childbirth, male physicians became involved, introducing new techniques that interfered with the normal birth process and competed with midwives. By the 19th century, midwives struggled to hold onto their profession and advance through education. Midwives survived in Europe, but in America, they were eventually usurped in the early 20th century when birth began taking place in hospitals and as medical science and technology advanced. Midwives eventually rose again as educated nurse-midwives. Technology and obstetric interventions in normal childbirth continue, in spite of lack of evidence of their efficacy. Midwives are again in jeopardy because of rising malpractice insurance costs, women's trust in technology, and, most recently, renewed efforts by physicians to once again prevent midwives from practicing autonomously and outside the hospital environment in the United States.

Indexed as

midwivesnormal childbirthobstetric interventions

Identifiers

PMID19436438
PMCPMC2582410

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.