A Higher Middle Way: Birth Philosophy at the Catholic Maternity Institute, 1944–1969

Abstract:Drawing upon Catholic views of childbearing and the role of laywomen, the Medical Mission Sisters at the Catholic Maternity Institute (CMI) in Santa Fe, New Mexico, reconciled competing cultural and medical approaches to birth. Operating between 1944 and 1969, the CMI is noteworthy for starting the first free-standing birth center in the United States, for reducing maternal and infant mortality, and for its birth philosophy. Operating at the borders dividing cultures—medical and spiritual, technological and natural, Latino and Anglo-American—the CMI developed a distinctive vision of maternity care. The sisters kept childbirth centered around women at a time when birth was moving decisively into the purview of doctors and hospitals. The sisters' mediating approach helped resolve the central conundrum of prenatal care: why women should change prenatal behaviors, departing from social expectations and traditions, when their actions could not assure fetal health. The CMI resolved this tension by emphasizing birth as women's active participation in God's creative work.