A Midwife’s Own Story: Something is Missing
The short film All My Babies…A Midwife’s Own Story informs a narrative of what it was like to serve as a midwife in the 1950s. Although the story showed the significance of the midwife, it also signified a deeper, troubling issue that was prevalent during that time: one that I surmise from having read what it was like to live within a patriarchal society and under the thumb of the Jim Crow laws. The short film did a great job at highlighting what issues surrounded prenatal care from the perspectives of the patient, the midwife, and the physician. It too captured the beauty of birth and the joy that “birth” brings. However, the film failed in that it did not go far enough.
It could have explained why so many midwives were used in the place of medical facilities. It could have explained whether this was a social or economic issue. Going further in detail, the film could have addressed and satisfied my supposition, which came from the aspect of the film where the midwife met with the pregnant woman and her husband. Not only was it shocking to hear that the pregnant woman lost her first and second child, but also that she was on her third and had not been to see a physician. After losing two children, it would seem unfathomable that a person would neglect all precautions to eliminate reoccurring results. But most shockingly of all — something that could have been missed entirely — was the part when her husband says about going to the clinic, “oh, that’s not going to hurt you.” I was thinking, as opposed to what — especially after the misfortune they had been through with her previous pregnancy.
It got me to thinking that maybe Black women did not trust white physicians, and being that Jim Crow laws were so pervasive throughout the South, maybe they had a valid reason. Maybe this is why so many pregnant Black women had midwives attend to them rather than the alternative: visiting a white physician. The atrocities committed against Black women by White men during slavery — the rapes, the beatings, the removing of the Black man from the household, etc. Maybe the mistrust against White men or White physicians was the reason so many midwives were needed in the Black community. I noticed that one of the Black women who gave birth in the film appeared to be in a better financial situation than the other—this made me think that maybe it was more than an economic issue.
It would have been nice if the film provided additional context. Because it did not, it left me to my own “imaginary.” This is the same “imaginary” spoken of in my first two posts, spawned by previous the reading assignments. Like films and other forms of media that typecast the South and Southern culture based on Southern historical precedence, I did the same thing. I was left to draw my own conclusions, based off my predispositions of the South and Southern culture.
I believe a comprehensive story on midwives and why they were in high demand during this period in time was missing in this documentary. It led me to believe that the South was up to its old tricks again.
