Abstract

ANDINA DIAZ, Elena  and  SILES GONZALEZ, José. The story of a midwife in rural Spain in the mid-twentieth Century. Index Enferm [online]. 2015, vol.24, n.1-2, pp.81-85. ISSN 1699-5988.  https://dx.doi.org/10.4321/S1132-12962015000100018.

The story that follows is that of Petrina, a woman who combined her work in the farm, sewing and the housework with that of a midwife in her village, Alvares de la Ribera, a small town located in El Bierzo, in the province of Leon. She worked as a midwife during the 1960s and 1970s, until women started going to give birth to the public hospital in Ponferrada, the capital of the county. With the methodological techniques proper to oral and social history, her testimony has allowed us to understand the attention that expecting women of rural areas received in the period before the National Health Service generalized. Additionally, her story helps us also to raise aware of the important role that those women like her played in the first days of life of many people, a social concerned that has in many cases remained unknown.

Keywords : Midwife; History; Birth.