The story
- Middle English · inherited frommidwif
- English todaymidwife
From Middle English midwif, corresponding to mid (“with”) + wif (“woman, wife, female”). It appears not to be entirely clear whether the original understanding was “with-woman” in the sense of “attending/assisting woman”, or “they who are with the woman” (namely the mother).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.