Social Support Systems and Midwifery

Since the existence of mankind, there is assistance to women who are pregnant or childbirth or in post-partum period by people around them for not to leave them alone. Most of these supports are provided by their friends, families, community and midwives. In history, experienced women who attended childbirths were called “midwives” and the word “midwives” was used to mean “with women.” For this reason, as a profession, midwifery has had a social role throughout history in all cultures. However, in most countries since the middle of the 20th century, many women have begun to give birth in hospital rather than home, and have been out of routine support at birth. Women are isolated by common usage of medical intervention to parturition and, social support and supportive midwifery care have left their places to technological approaches. This has resulted in women not only receiving adequate supportive care, but also receiving routine medical care and increasing cesarean rates. The divergence of women’s childbirth experiences from human values has led to an attempt to return a sustained individual support provided by the midwives. It’s well known that social support that is one of an independent role of midwifery enhances the parturition results for both mother and neonatal therefore it becomes more significant. This review is written to acquaint to midwives and students of midwifery about social support systems and supportive midwifery care during pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum periods, and to point out this subject