ABSTRACT
There was no legislation controlling the midwife’s work until the nineteenth century. Some countries were even later than this in controlling the sphere of midwifery practice. Legislation was passed in Australia, Norway, and Sweden in 1801; in France in 1803; in Belgium in 1818; in the Federal Republic of Germany, the Netherlands, and the U.S.S.R. in 1865; and in England and Wales in 1902. The shape these national laws took reflected existing differences between countries in what midwives were allowed to do.
