In these country examples and in common parlance the
term midwifery is used either to describe a collaborative
activity involving a range of care providers or to describe
the work of midwives, resulting in ambiguity.39 In this
fi rst paper in a Series of four papers about midwifery, we
defi ne the terms midwifery and midwife, specifying
which term the evidence presented relates to. We aimed
to test, comprehensively and systematically, the contribution
that midwifery—practised by midwives and
others—can make to the quality of care of women and
infants globally. Randomised trials can only be used to
examine some components of quality,40,41 so we have used
a multimethod approach to assess the key concepts of
quality in maternal and newborn care including safe,
eff ective, accessible, appropriate, aff ordable, equitable,
effi cient, and woman-centred care.42