Midwifery education in central Europe - challenges for the future

Abstract

Midwifery work in the territory of Central Europe is based on a long tradition. The role of midwives in the then Austrian Empire, which comprised most of Central Europe, was firstly defined as early as 1552 by the order of Ordopolitiae, issued by Ferdinand I of Habsburg, Holy Roman emperor (Zalai, 1973). In 1799, the first legal order for the provision of health care, Taxa Pharmaceutica, came into force. Article XIV of the Act of 1876 on the Organization of Public Health further tightened the qualification requirements for midwives as a regular course at university or a specialized school (Falisová & Morovicsová, 2015). After the First World War, successor states took on the high education requirements in midwifery, as a highly respected profession.