midwife

plural midwives · alternative verb midwive

1. A person, usually a woman, who is trained to assist women in childbirth, but who is not a physician.

   Modernly, a hospital midwife is usually a registered nurse.

   3 more examples

   A hundred years ago, a midwife would bring the baby into the world - going to a hospital to deliver a baby was either impossible or unheard of.

   The senior midwife confirmed that […] occasionally a multigravid woman could feel little more than slight abdominal discomfort.

   2009, Jennifer Worth, Farewell to the East End, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, page 235

   Despite Richard's efforts to midwive his own narrative of legitimacy, the source of this legendary one cannot be controlled because it has moved from the mouths of nurses, midwives and gossips into the public domain.

   2017, Caroline Bicks, Midwiving Subjects in Shakespeare’s England, page 123

2. figurativelyrareSomeone who assists in bringing about some result or project.

   He had not read it, but he said that every detail in it was true. This struck me as a rather cavalier attitude to truth, but hatred is not the midwife of caution or accuracy.

   2012, Theodore Dalrymple, The Wilder Shores of Marx: Journeys in a Vanishing World

present singular third person midwifes · participle present midwifing · participle past midwifed · past midwifed · alternative verb midwive

1. transitiveTo act as a midwife.
2. figurativelytransitiveTo facilitate the emergence of.

   But the bigger objective was to help Iraqis midwife a democratic model that could inspire reform across the Arab-Muslim world and give the youth there a chance at a better future.

   2010 April 13, Thomas L. Friedman, “Attention: Baby on Board.”, in The New York Times

   1 more example

   In the mid-1960s, Reichism was midwifed into reexistence by such stalwarts as William Schutz, Bernard Gunther, Charlotte Selver, Alexander Lowen, Ida Rolf, and many other exponents of human knead needs.

   2013, Jon Carlson, William Knaus, Albert Ellis Revisited, →ISBN, page 288