A View from within: Midwife Practices in South Texas

This article describes midwife practices and recommends a possible training program for midwives in South Texas. A 100-item questionnaire was administered to twenty-five practicing midwives in South Texas. All the interviews were tape-recorded. The midwives were all women and they ranged in age from thirty-eight to eighty years old. A qualitative analysis of these interviews indicates that a midwife training program is necessary to standardize and upgrade the practice of midwifery in this area. In addition, all midwives interviewed expressed an interest in participating in a training program. Finally, recommendations are made for designing a training program that would be efficient and culturally relevant to this midwife population.