A centenary for the midwives of Santa Cristina
Midwifery is probably the oldest female occupation in the history of Mankind. In the most ancient documented records, the figure of the midwife appears in connection with the reproductive processes of women.
As we shall see in this Exhibition for the Virtual Museum of Human Ecology, there were two important periods for the training of midwives in Spain. The one which lasted many centuries longer took place through the transmission of ancestral knowledge from woman to woman. Training to be a midwife in ancient times involved spending some years as an apprentice to an experienced midwife, who would pass on the tricks of the trade. Very often, this matrilineal transmission, this oral and practical teaching, was between different generations of women from the same family. Mother to daughter, grandmother to granddaughter, and sister to sister. It is not unusual to find families with successive generations of midwives, such as some we have included in this temporary exhibition.
The second period, from the late 18th century to the present day saw, after much regulating, a professionalising stage. During this period men, who had hitherto kept out of women's affairs, took the lead and this led to the institutionalising of delivery and to midwives becoming an unseen part of the heterogeneous group that make up an obstetric team in a hospital.
In this exhibition we will focus on an institution which this year, 2024, is celebrating its centenary and played a key role in the training of midwives for most of the 20th century: la Casa de Salud de Santa Cristina (Santa Cristina Health Centre) in Madrid and, more precisely, the School of Midwifery organized by the Centre and was a basic pillar of the founders' objectives: to provide future midwives with a place to acquire quality theoretical and practical knowledge. After a brief introduction to the training of midwives in Spain, we will concentrate on the study of what was probably the most emblematic institution for training Spanish midwives.
The level of care at the centre was a transitional model between the old, private charity work and the new social provision. The building housed women from all social classes, although they did not mix.
Since its inauguration in 1924 up to the end of its maternity activities in June 2004, in other words, almost 80 years, it attended over 120,000 deliveries and its wards trained around 2,000 midwives from all over Spain.
We would like to thank Erena Bañuelos Chacón (Gregoria Villafría Arnáiz's granddaughter and Gracia Chacón Villafría's daughter) for donating her family photos of three generations trained at Santa Cristina practically from the opening to the closure of the maternity and midwifery wards, as well as Francisco Glicerio Conde Mora, professor at the Salus Infirmorum University Nursing Center in Cádiz, for the transfer of the original that illustrates the text "The first stone of the Casa de Salud de Santa Cristina". We would also like to thank the management of the Hospital Universitario de Santa Cristina for allowing us to photograph their historical museum and to use the photos in this exhibition.
Dolores Ruiz-Berdún, author of the texts and organiser of the exhibition is a full professor of the History of Science at the Universidad de Alcalá (UAH), where she coordinates the research team called «Historia y divulgación de las Ciencias Biosanitarias» (History and transmission of Biosanitary Science), president of Lvcina (the Spanish Society for the History of Births) and secretary of the Spanish Society for the History of Science and Technique (SEHCYT). Amparo Lujano Arenas, PhD student in the Healthcare Science Doctoral Programme (UAH), and Rosario Martín Alcaide, Doctor in Healthcare Science (UAH), have helped with the compiling of some photos.
This exhibition is part of the research Project «El desarrollo histórico de las empresas hospitalarias del sector privado en competencia y colaboración con el sector público: España en perspectiva internacional (1920-2020)» (the historical development of hospital companies in the private sector and their cooperation with the public sector. Spain from an international perspective), reference number PID2021-122699OB-I00, and the European proyect COST Action National «International and Transnational Histories of Healthcare, 1850-2000 (EuroHealthHist)».
Further reading
Colomer, Anabitarte (2003). «Maternidad de Santa Cristina. 100 años de la gestación de un sueño, 1903-2003», El Ateneo. Revista Científica, Literaria y Artística, 4 (12-13): 35-43.
Goberna Tricas, Josefina (2023). «Ante la falta de matronas, debemos cuestionarnos el modelo formativo», MUSAS: revista de investigación en mujer, salud y sociedad, 8 (1): 1-2:
Linares Abad, Manuel; Álvarez Nieto, Carmen y Moral Guitérrez, Inés (2008). «El discurso médico sobre las matronas a mediados del siglo XX», Index de Enfermería, 17 (4): 251-255.
Martín-Alcaide, Rosario (2022). La Escuela de Matronas de Santa Cristina de Madrid (1904-1987) [Tesis doctoral], Alcalá de Henares: Universidad de Alcalá.
Martín-Alcaide, Rosario y Ruiz-Berdún, Dolores (2019). «Un hospital para mujeres promovido por mujeres: la Casa de Salud de Santa Cristina de Madrid». Temperamentvm: revista internacional de historia y pensamiento enfermero, 15: 1-6.
Ruiz-Berdún, Dolores y Martín-Alcaide, Rosario (2018). «Tres generaciones en la Escuela de Matronas de Santa Cristina» (pp. 49-60). En Dolores Ruiz-Berdún (ed.), Ciencia y Técnica en la Universidad. Trabajos de Historia de las Ciencias y de las Técnicas, Alcalá de Henares: Servicio de publicaciones de la Universidad de Alcalá.
Ruiz-Berdún, Dolores (2016). «La inauguración de la Casa de Salud de Santa Cristina y su escuela de matronas», Matronas Profesión, 17(2): 30-38.
Ruiz-Berdún, Dolores (2022). Historia de las matronas en España, Madrid: Guadalmazán.