The New Midwifery offers a critical perspective on women's reproductive health and midwifery issues. This incisive collection of essays examines the impact of professionalization, legalization, and state involvement on women-centred care and on the perspectives of midwifery consumers. Midwives and social scientists from a variety of cultural identities, political perspectives, geographical locations, and education and training backgrounds reflect, in clear and accessible language, on the legislative processes involved in the regulation of midwifery. Given that legalization of what has, until recently, been a lay practitioners arena promises to be the wave of the future for many jurisdictions, parents-to-be, policy makers, health care workers, educators, and the general public will find The New Midwifery invaluable in learning more about the re-emerging profession.

Farah Mahrukh Shroff, BSc, Med (Primary Health Care), PhD, works in the areas of health, social justice, and holism. As an activist, educator and health professional, she had worked in many parts of the South, in Europe, and all over Canada. Her research areas include holistic health, policy, HIV/AIDS, women’s health, and community development and health.

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"This book is a wonderful collection of articles by those who have been instrumental in shaping the face of midwifery in this country. Questions about the benefits and drawbacks of regulation, issues important to Aboriginal women, women with disabilities, and women from diverse ethnocultural backgrounds, along with important documentation of the process of legislation throughout the country, make this collection invaluable to all those with an interest in women-centered health care."— “Elaine Carty, Professor of Nursing, University of British Columbia