Valuing Women’s Labour

Interesting article here, about new proposals from the Independent Midwives Association (IMA) for the way the NHS structures midwifery care. The idea seems to be to set up a more personal and long-term relationship between the pregnant woman and midwife, giving women the more choice about their care, as well as more flexibility to the midwives in terms of when and where they work. These proposals are intended to remedy the ‘present conveyor-belt model of care’.
Interesting philosophy-wise: the talk of the ‘conveyor belt’ model suggests that both midwife and pregnant woman are both engaged in production-line, unskilled work, raising issues of the way that women’s labour is viewed and valued (as discussed by Okin 1989).