There’s always been someone who’s had to do what I do. Unfortunately, our culture has lost touch with how significantly necessary the midwife is. It’s even more unfortunate when you learn that the reason is racism. In our country’s history, midwife duties often fell to enslaved women who’d travel among plantations helping other enslaved people have their babies, and sometimes visit the big house to help plantation owners deliver. Then, in the early 1900s, a movement began to demonize the granny midwife as dirty and unsophisticated compared to hospitals of the era. Many minorities couldn’t afford to go to the hospital, so this very quickly became a classist issue. Those who could were encouraged to disconnect from the instincts of their bodies and let someone else’s procedure supersede the natural process.