Midwife

Midwife

Noun · /ˈmɪd.waɪf/

Definition

A person (historically almost always a woman) trained to assist women in childbirth; a trained professional who provides care during pregnancy, labour, birth, and the postnatal period; more broadly, a person or thing that helps bring something into being.

Origin

From Middle English midwyf, from mid (with, together with) + wyf (woman, wife in its original sense of woman not specifically a married woman). The compound meaning is thus the woman who is with (the labouring woman) — the attending woman. The mid element here is not middle but the Old English preposition mid meaning with or together with (related to German mit and Greek meta in some senses). The midwife was the attendant woman — present with the mother during childbirth.