ABSTRACT

Today, the majority of births in Georgia occur in the sterile environment of a hospital. However, Georgia's long history of healthcare and medicine has not always followed that trend. In the nineteenth century, the United States ushered in changes in the methods of labor and delivery that would severely impact the future of childbirth. Knowledge of healing and herbal remedies that survived the middle passage continued in the practices of Granny Midwives, women who were crucial to a birthing process that has disappeared from the southern healthcare landscape. Georgia's Granny Midwives were casualties in the state's quest for better maternal healthcare. Medical professionals suggested that Georgia had a "Midwife Problem." This research argues that there was no problem attributed to the birthing practices of midwives.