80% of the women appreciated having someone to listen to their problems; there was little change in the physical outcome of the pregnancy.21 In addition, I suspect that midwives and doctors are haunted by the fear that they might miss something (or at least be accused of missing something) if they don't conform to the expected ritual.
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Thomas F. X. Noble (1993) studied this question.
Synapse has enriched one closely related paper. Consider it for comparative context: