Granny Midwives in Mississippi
"Protect the Mother and Baby"
When the Mississippi State Board of Health (which became the Mississippi Department of Health in 1982) began to focus on complications resulting from childbirth in 1917, Dr. W. S. Leathers contended that there was “no greater need” than that of studying and reducing infant mortality. Three years later, the Mississippi Board of Health created the Bureau of Child Welfare and appropriated $40,000 for public health work related to children, nutrition, prenatal care, and midwifery supervision.
On the federal level, Congress passed the Sheppard-Towner Maternity and Infancy Protection Act in 1921. One of the first social welfare programs in the country, the act provided one million dollars in annual funding that helped Mississippi and other states develop and administer health and welfare programs beneficial to mothers, infants, and children.
By 1920, midwives delivered approximately 80% of the black babies born in Mississippi. Called "granny" midwives, most of the women were black, had little education, and played central roles in the provision of perinatal care in rural black communities. Critical of the midwives' lack of formal preparation, state officials enacted regulatory mechanisms through which standards were established and maintained.
Under the direction of Mary Osborne, a collaborative network of public health nurses and "granny" midwives was begun in which the nurses implemented training programs for the midwives, and the midwives in turn assisted the nurses in the delivery of improved maternal/infant services. In 1922, Osborne authored Manual for Midwives which contained guidelines for the appropriate provision of care, and which continued to be revised as recently as the 1970s.