An estimated 295,000 women worldwide die annually due to childbirth. And there are concerning trends in areas like the United States where maternal mortality rates are on the rise. Care under the supervision of a midwife has often been associated with better outcomes, and so the question becomes why.

Hear Sally Pairman, MD, Chief Executive for the International Confederation of Midwives, share how much of the answer is rooted in how we look at birth. Birth, as she puts it, is a physiological process requiring wholistic facilitation from beginning to end. All too often birth is treated like a pathologic process where the treatment resembles treating an illness. As Dr. Pairman exclaims, it’s not illness. It’s health!