ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the historical and present struggles of midwives in Massachusetts as they interact with medical and political-legal structures in their attempts to establish professional credibility. Since 1907, when Massachusetts became the first state to declare midwifery the practice of medicine, physicians had been the only licensed prenatal care/birth practitioners. In the early 1970s both direct-entry and nurse-midwives began their own respective battles to become prenatal care/birth providers. The Massachusetts Medical Society used its social, political, and economic hegemony to prevent both groups of midwives from administering prenatal care and attending births.
