Matrons and the reduction of maternal mortality, contributing to the debate

Given the presupposition that biomedicine was capable of preventing the majority of maternal deaths, one of the recommendations of the 'Maternity without Risk Initiative' in 1987 was the training of matrons. These training programmes conducted over three decades are often described as a failure. However, they did not take into account the heterogeneity of social statuses and matrons' practices, nor did they challenge certain educational methods essentially didactic and often inadequate. Thus the debate with regards to the relevance of such training programmes is far from being closed. In this perspective, the book The art of matrons revisited. Questioning contemporary birth', led by Pascale Hancart Petitet in 2011, gathers nine contributions from authors whose objective is not that of questioning the benefits of biomedicalisation of delivery but to show how and why matrons' practices and the current debate around matrons' practices are constructed. (Global Health Promotion, 2011; 18(4): 31-34)