BUILDING THE NATION THROUGH WOMEN'S HEALTH: MODERN ...

The maternity ward practice grouped together no more than three students to take care of
delivery and the postnatal mother and baby for at least 25 deliveries. The students were required
to take detailed notes about their maternity ward experiences. 216
The National Midwifery Board also played a significant role in legitimizing the new
midwifery profession. Its members instituted rules, standardized midwifery school curricula and
exams, restricted old-style midwives from practicing, and enforced licensing and registration.
This bureaucratization helped to solidify the midwives’ role in building a new China. Its most
notable successes were the national schools, for they served as models for several other
provincial, city wide, and rural midwife training programs.
According to a national report, in 1936 China had two national midwifery schools (First
National Midwifery School in Beiping and the Central Midwifery School in Nanjing),10
provincial schools, one of which was affiliated with a national medical school and one with a
public hospital, and 52 private midwifery schools. 217 There were also rural midwife training
programs as part of a few experimental districts, like Dingxian. I will discuss national,
provincial, rural, and municipal midwife and public health training programs in turn.
I have included a survey of nursing schools in this study because obstetrical training was
part of most, if not all, nursing programs. The Nurses’ Association of China, in fact, initially
opposed separate midwife training, stating that midwifery fell under the broader domain of
nursing. 218 Midwifery courses were part of the standard nursing training, and oftentimes schools
offered nursing graduates additional coursework to specialize in midwifery. According to a 1934
investigation of the China’s Department of Public Health (weisheng shu 卫生署), nationwide
216 Ibid.
217 Neizhengbu, Neizheng Nianjian, 208.
218 Yip, Health and National Reconstruction, 165-67.
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