Midwifery in the context of "Indigenous knowledge"

Health care, or healthcare, is the improvement or maintenance of health via the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in people. Health care is delivered by health professionals and allied health fields. Medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, midwifery, nursing, optometry, audiology, psychology, occupational therapy, physical therapy, athletic training, and other health professions all constitute health care. The term includes work done in providing primary care, secondary care, tertiary care, and public health.

Access to health care may vary across countries, communities, and individuals, influenced by social and economic conditions and health policies. Providing health care services means "the timely use of personal health services to achieve the best possible health outcomes". Factors to consider in terms of health care access include financial limitations (such as insurance coverage), geographical and logistical barriers (such as additional transportation costs and the ability to take paid time off work to use such services), sociocultural expectations, and personal limitations (lack of ability to communicate with health care providers, poor health literacy, low income). Limitations to health care services affect negatively the use of medical services, the efficacy of treatments, and overall outcome (well-being, mortality rates).

Eileithyia or Ilithyia (/ɪlɪˈθaɪ.ə/; Ancient Greek: Εἰλείθυια; Ἐλεύθυια (Eleuthyia) in Crete, also Ἐλευθία (Eleuthia) or Ἐλυσία (Elysia) in Laconia and Messene, and Ἐλευθώ (Eleuthō) in literature) was the Greek goddess of childbirth and midwifery, and the daughter of Zeus and Hera. In the cave of Amnisos (Crete) she was related with the annual birth of the divine child, and her cult is connected with Enesidaon (the earth shaker), who was the chthonic aspect of the god Poseidon. It is possible that her cult is related with the cult of Eleusis. In his Seventh Nemean Ode, Pindar refers to her as the maid to or seated beside the Moirai (Fates) and responsible for the creation of offspring. Her son was Sosipolis, who was worshiped at Elis.

The Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery & Palliative Care is an academic faculty within King's College London. The faculty is the world's first nursing school to be continuously connected to a fully serving hospital and medical school (St. Thomas' Hospital). Established on 9 July 1860 by Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing, it was a model for many similar training schools through the UK, Commonwealth and other countries for the latter half of the 19th century. It is primarily concerned with the education of people to become nurses and midwives. It also carries out nursing research, continuing professional development and postgraduate programmes. The Faculty forms part of the Waterloo campus on the South Bank of the River Thames and is now one of the largest faculties in the university.

The school is ranked as the number one faculty for nursing in London and in the United Kingdom whilst third in the world rankings and belongs to one of the leading universities in health services, policy and research in the world. A freedom-of-information request in 2015 disclosed that the Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery had one of the lowest admission offer rates of 14% to its applicants.

A midwife (pl.: midwives) is a health professional who cares for mothers and newborns around childbirth, a specialisation known as midwifery.

The education and training for a midwife concentrates extensively on the care of women throughout their lifespan; concentrating on being experts in what is normal and identifying conditions that need further evaluation. In most countries, midwives are recognised as skilled healthcare providers. Midwives are trained to recognise variations from the normal progress of labour and understand how to deal with deviations from normal. They may intervene in high risk situations such as breech births, twin births, using non-invasive techniques. For complications related to pregnancy and birth that are beyond the midwife's scope of practice, including surgical and instrumental deliveries, they refer their patients to physicians or surgeons. In many parts of the world, these professions work in tandem to provide care to childbearing women. In others, only the midwife is available to provide care, and in yet other countries, many women elect to use obstetricians primarily over midwives.