Midwife Salome (fresco in monastery of Latomou)

May 5 is International Day of the Midwife, but Ricardo Jones, a doctor and midwife, is spending it under house arrest after recently being sentenced to 14 years prison for assisting with a home birth in which the baby later died of congenital pneumonia. He says the sentence is the same had he gone “into a hospital and shot a baby in the head.” The case comes as health systems globally push towards unnecessary cesarean-sections and foster obstetric violence that disregards pregnant people’s agency.

The International Confederation of Midwives established May 5 as a day for celebrating and raising awareness of the midwifery profession. They stress that midwives “can provide up to 90% of sexual, reproductive, maternal, newborn, and adolescent health services.” Further, various studies have demonstrated that home births with midwives see better obstetric and neonatal outcomes for low-risk pregnancies than hospital births, and spontaneous births are 3.4 times more likely at home with a midwife.

However, Jones’ sentence appears to be a deliberate attempt to delegitimize midwifery, as part of a concerted push towards profitable hospitalizations. Jones, a Brazilian gynecologist and obstetrician, was found guilty of homicide in the first degree (i.e. intentional murder) on 28 March. He told me he was imprisoned for three weeks, before being released into house arrest.

The incident took place 15 years ago. He described helping to deliver a 30-week-old baby. “It was a very normal labor, but the baby was breathing too fast,” he said. He and his wife, a midwife nurse who received an 11-year sentence, encouraged the mother to go to hospital two hours after the birth – standard procedure – and though the mother was initially reluctant, they did so. Overnight in the hospital, the baby had a lot of problems, and she died 24 hours after birth. It is........

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