“Usually provides several people with abortion drugs”: midwifery, professional disputes and female sociability (Porto Alegre, RS, First Republic)

Abstract

The article deals with the midwifery profession, its social importance, the disputes for clientele and the female sociability that revolved around this professional exercise. The midwife was a limit presence between life and death, between a good birth and an unwanted outcome. It was she who brought the child into the world, cut the umbilical cord, took care of the woman who had just given birth, cleaned the newborn, provided (sometimes, in the parents’ own courtyard) the stillbirth burial, baptized the born in periculo mortis, he hurried the survivors. The analysis of this health worker uses judicial documents as social observatories, and through them handles the crossing with other sources, looking for the social experiences of the agents present there, both in the exercise of their profession, as well as receiving diverse assistance. Part of the women who appear in this article, consulting or effectively using the services of midwives, are domestic service workers, thus, we will also discuss issues of this work universe.

Keywords

• midwife
• female sociability
• health