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Ah, Mavis, youve prompted my memory - I think it was Margie Duff who did the work on non-VE ways of assessing progress in labour? Margie, are you on the list? Was it you? what is the current state of your research if so? all the best soo >>> [log in to unmask] 02/19 4:11 pm >>> Coming back from holiday, I entered this discussion without reading all the contributions. Ann Montgomery's point about resources is really important. Women have a right to good facilities around birth. Yet once we have technology there is a terrible imperative to use it, whether the technology concerns measurment, surgury or the military. The technical imperative itself is a good reason for separating midwifery care away from obstetrics (though high risk women need midwives too) and is why we can only learn about "normal" labour from home births or possibly from birth centres, though they are few and somewhat "protocolised" now. But the separation must not be so great that women do not have access. Wouldn't it be wonderful if that separation could be honoured in the minds of all birth attendents and did not need a geographical divide, or is that impossible for the reasons that technology carries its imperative: issues of power and politics. Yana, I love the poem. It is beautiful. I don't know the poet but will look for other poems of his. But the original journeyer to Ithaca was the ultimate male hero and look what happened to his faithful wife. Maybe the journey, in this sense, is that of the midwife seeking wisdom, as you said, rather than of the mother towards her baby's birth. Sue, there is a New Zealand midwife who did her Prof Doctorate at the University of Technology Sydney on other ways of measuring progress in labout apart from VEs. She is called Margie and I cannot remember her surname. Best Wishes, Mavis