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midwife

Historical Office
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A woman trained to assist in childbirth, often without formal medical credentials historically

Detailed Definition
The midwife appears in poetry as a figure of feminine wisdom, life-giving power, and communal trust. Historically central to birth and early care, midwives held intimate knowledge of the body. In verse, they symbolize creation, mystery, and the continuity of generations. Poets use midwives to explore themes of origin, pain, and the sacredness of embodied experience, often contrasting their intuitive care with clinical detachment.
Example
Example in poetry:
In medieval childbirth verse, the midwife guides mothers with herbal wisdom; Victorian poets like Christina Rossetti depict midwives as sacred attendants; The midwife in Thomas Hardy’s rural verse knows every household’s secrets; Midwives appear in folklore poems using charms and chants; In Reformation verse, midwives face suspicion as healers; Their hands symbolize life’s first touch in elegiac poetry.
Additional Notes
Midwives assisted childbirth using empirical knowledge, often excluded from male-dominated medicine—poetic midwives may represent nurturing, female wisdom, or marginal expertise; their role highlights gendered knowledge systems and the body’s mysteries in domestic or folkloric verse.
Also Known As
accoucheuse
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