Miss Babineau does much more for the community than attend labors. \In this story, traditional midwifery takes on a role for women that meets their needs and far exceeds the medical model of care. Being a midwife, which means “with woman”, was not and is not just about catching babies. The Birth House gives an enchanting example of how the practices of traditional midwifery were passed on from generation to generation. In all of those instances, the townspeople come running to Miss Babineau for help, and soon to Dora as well. Many of the local townspeople view Miss Babineau, and now Dora, as witches or something of the like, and most keep their distance from the both of them that is until a child is sick, a woman has gynecological concerns, or a baby is being born into the world. This alone gives the town enough rumors to spread about her and her family.īut when family circumstances force her to choose between staying with her “proper” aunt Fran or the local midwife Miss Babineau for the winter, she chooses to stay with the midwife. Dora, a young adolescent, is the first girl to be born in many generations of the Rare family genealogy. The Birth House follows the life of Dora Rare, who lives in a small and slightly isolated village off the coast of Nova Scotia, around the time of World War I.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |