Women with a briefcase and hope

From time immemorial, the midwife has been part of the local collective memory - she was perceived as an inventory of the village, just like the parish priest, the teacher, the mayor; everyone needed a grandmother. She stood by the biological (she took the child out of the mother's womb) and social birth (she held him during baptism, sometimes she was a godmother). She also participated in other tasks, playing an important role in rites of passage: birth, baptism, introduction and death. Approximately between 1850 and 1950, the professionalization of obstetric care deepened. She went from being a neighbourhood helper to a profession that needed to be legislated for: over a hundred years, the midwife has turned into a midwife. < br> < br> The book traces the changes in the legislative framework that limits the life and work of midwives, the institutionalization of midwifery education, and analyzes the changes in the relationship between midwives and the Church. It pays attention to the variably harmonious and disharmonious relationship between midwives and doctors, as well as the gender stereotypes that were most prominent in this segment of history with respect to midwives. Babes are also introduced as a professional group; can be observed how often and in what way they violated the law in their difficult practice. The book concludes with the gradual self-awareness of midwives, seeking to answer the question of when and how they began to claim their rights, why they rejected the label "midwife" and sought the more "dignified" title of "midwife."