Timeline: 

Midwives were the standard of care for women for centuries. With the move to hospitals and physician births in the United States, midwives almost became a footnote in our medical history. But today, midwives are as popular as they were in the biblical days for the same reasons...midwives listen to, empower, educate, and support women.  

• 5th Century B.C.- The first documented formal midwifery training program was started by Hippocrates.  Despite the school started by Hippocrates, the education of midwives was halting and ineffectual until the 3rd century B.C.
  

• In 1620, there was a midwife on the Mayflower. History has it that Bridget Lee Fuller attended two births while the ship traveled across the Atlantic Ocean on its quest to bring the pilgrims to the new world.
  

• Late 1800's, thanks to his invention of forceps, Peter Chamberlain's lineage becomes "man midwives" to the British royal family.
  

• By 1900, midwives were attending nearly 3/4 of all births in England. Coincidentally, physicians were also attending about half of births in the United States. The births of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were attended by the same midwife, even though she had to travel from Germany to England to attend both.
• 1925: Mary Breckenridge founded the Frontier Nursing Service in Leslie County, Kentucky.  Nurse-midwives provided midwifery and nursing care to the people of the area, traveling by horseback to attend births or provide emergency care.
  

• The Maternity Center Association and the Lobenstine Clinic, with encouragement from the Children's Bureau, set up the first nurse-midwifery school in the U.S. Hattie Hemschemeyer, a Public Health Nurse educator, was named Executive Director of the program.

• Sixteennurse-midwives formed the Kentucky State Association of Midwives, the first American nurse-midwifery organization in 1929. The name was later changed to the American Association of Nurse-Midwives, a predecessor to the American College of Nurse-Midwives which was chartered in 1955.
  

• "Thank you Dr. Lamaze," published in 1959, greatly renewed America's interest in natural childbirth.
  

• 535: the number of nurse-midwives in America in 1963, according to a national suervey by the Children's Bureau. That number has grown to more than 10,000 in 2006.
  
  
• In 1990, Laurel Lee Ulrich won a Pulitzer Prize for her book, "The Midwife's Tale", which was a discussion of a diary of Martha Ballard, a New England midwife (and also the aunt of Clara Barton who founded the US Red Cross).
  

• 1998: the National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control, and Prevention provides evidence of lower infant mortality rates for nurse-midwife attended births.

• By 1999, American nurse-midwives attended more than 220,000 births (9% of all births) in that year-**98% are in hospitals--rising steadily since 1979.
  

• 2001: Nurse-midwives are leaders in women's health care, and a growing career field with education programs in 48 colleges and universities including Yale, Georgetown, Emory, Vanderbilt, and the University of Maryland.

• The 2002 National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control statistics show midwife-attended births on the rise. That year, nurse-midwives attended 307,527 births, more than 10% of spontaneous vaginal births.
  
  
• In 2005, ACNM celebrated it's 50th anniversary and 50 years of being "With women, throughout time."
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• Modern midwives carry with them a wonderful history of caring for women throughout history, bringing with them an understanding of today's technology, and blending the best of high tech and high touch.