The Lancet's new (free, online) midwifery series

The Lancet has a new on-line birth/midwifery section with some interesting stuff on it:

http://www.thelancet.com/series/midwifery

This is the introduction to the series:

"The essential needs of childbearing women in all countries, and of their babies and families, are the focus of this thought-provoking series of international studies on midwifery. Many of those needs are still not being met, decades after they have been recognized. New solutions are required. The Series provides a framework for quality maternal and newborn care (QMNC) that firmly places the needs of women and their newborn infants at its centre. It is based on a definition of midwifery that takes account of skills, attitudes and behaviours rather than specific professional roles. The findings of this Series support a shift from fragmented maternal and newborn care provision that is focussed on identification and treatment of pathology to a whole-system approach that provides skilled care for all."
 
The first editorial http://download.thelancet.com/flatcontentassets/series/midwifery/midwifery_exec_summ.pdf continues the theme of strengthening midwifery and placing of mother and baby at the centre of care and decision-making, and it also talks about relationships between health professionals and the women they care for.  Lots of good articles, a welcome development given The Lancet's reputation and spread.  The articles are free - simple to register and then download.

It is the appearance of this on The Lancet site that is such a welcome change.  There is nothing particularly radical here in the content (good though it is), but it is good to see it coming from one of the intellectual bastions of western medicine.