What is the difference between midwives and obstetricians?
One crucial and consequential distinction between midwives and obstetricians lies in the foci of their practices. This distinction and its implications are discussed at length in Effective Care in Pregnancy and Childbirth. Because of time constraints, obstetricians caring for women with both normal and abnormal pregnancies have to make an impossible choice: to neglect the normal pregnancies in order to concentrate their care on those with pathology, or to spend most of their time supervising biologically normal processes. Midwives and general practitioners, on the other hand, are primarily oriented to the care of women with normal pregnancies, and are likely to have more detailed knowledge of the particular circumstances of individual women. The care that they can give to the majority of women, whose pregnancies are not affected by any major illness or serious complication, will often be more responsive to their needs than that given by specialist obstetricians (Enkin et al, 2000, p. 2
