74 INFANT WELFARE WORK 



Mr. Louis H. Levin, Secretary of the Jewish Federated Charities 

 of Baltimore: A statement made in regard to the training of mid- 

 wives has induced me to tell you of a little plan that we are trying 

 to work out here. It is not one that has been put into full operation, 

 but the object is this. One of our Jewish associations attempts to 

 take care of women during their confinement. This association has 

 a long list of so-called caretakers, thirty or forty, women who are 

 sent into homes during the time the mothers are incapacitated, and 

 they take care of the mother, of the house and of the children. It 

 was reported to our association sometime ago that the caretakers 

 were absolutely untrained. They did the best they could under the 

 circumstances, but they did not know how to take care of the mother 

 and the young child; in fact, they were simply housewives sent in 

 for a short time, and they did not do all that was necessary for the 

 purpose of making the mother comfortable and seeing that the child 

 was properly taken care of. It then occurred to us that it might 

 perhaps be possible to work out a system for training these care- 

 takers, and I put the question to the Hebrew Hospital, which has a 

 training school, and the idea was accepted, and we are working out 

 now the training of caretakers, who will see that the mother receives 

 proper attention, the child gets a proper start; and they are to report 

 to the proper people when anything does not go right. The plan 

 has simply been drawn up; a number of rather intelligent girls have 

 already applied for entrance to the course. We hope in time to 

 have trained caretakers. This is the only step that occurred to us 

 by which to meet this particular difficulty, and the suggestion of 

 having trained midwives really covers the idea that we have in mind. 

 The plan has been worked out, a course is going to be instituted, but 

 I am unable as yet to report any work done along this line. 



Question: What salaries are to be paid, and will there be any diffi- 

 culty probably in getting applicants? 



Mr. Levin: Until we have graduates there will be no reason, 1 

 believe, to fix salaries. It will be perhaps a year before there will 

 be a graduate. The caretakers at present receive from six to eight 

 dollars a week, the untrained ones. The salary as a practical ques- 

 tion has not yet been taken up. 



Question: How much training are they to have? 



Mr. Levin: I think the course will be a one year's course. They 

 will not be trained nurses, but distinctly caretakers. There will be 

 no attempt to foist them upon the public as trained nurses. 



Miss Van Blarcom: The idea of eliminating the midwife does not 

 commend itself as being practicable. The midwife in America will 

 continue to practice whether we will or no, for the foreigners in this 

 country cling tenaciously to the world old custon of employing 

 midwives. Should laws be passed making it illegal for a midwife to 

 practice, she would continue to practice in spite of the law, since 

 there, would always be doctors ready aand willing to protect her 

 by signing birth certificates for a small consideration. 



Moreover, the clean, well-trained midwife gives her patients more 

 and better care than the average physician who practices among the 

 same class of patients, since the midwife not only attends the mother 

 at the time of birth, but also gives both mother and infant what may 

 be compared to the care given by a visiting nurse, for ten or twelve 

 days after the delivery. 



From this it would seem that it is not a choice between elimina- 

 tion and training of the midwife, but a choice between allowing the 

 untrained woman to continue to practice unsupervised, and making 

 provision for her training and control. 



