Jane Salvage

Have you heard about Salome and Zebel, the two legendary midwives at Jesus’ nativity?

They arrived too late at the stable to help at Jesus’ birth. Zebel was an instant believer that the Messiah had come, but her better-known colleague, Salome, wasn’t so sure. She decided to examine Mary, with dire consequences that led to Jesus’ first miracle.

This strange, disturbing tale was told in the second-century Legend of the Doubting Midwife, once well known but now mostly forgotten. Salome became a cult figure and later a saint - the most famous midwife ever. And her story has inspired writers, painters, sculptors, poets, preachers, playwrights and musicians for nearly 2000 years.

My books, The Midwives’ Gospel and its companion volume, The Midwife’s Book of Hours, tell the full story of this compelling, weird but neglected tale of human action and divine intervention. I explore it from a unique and surprising angle, blending history, fable, memoir, feminism and midwifery.

The nativity midwives pose highly topical questions about representations of women, and who gets to tell or suppress our stories. Art historians have described them as handmaidens, shepherdesses, bystanders, onlookers, lowly figures, decoration and ‘unnamed women’. Yet another case of the invisible woman! This turned my interesting hobby into a passionate cause.

Once familiar in every community, the midwifery profession is in crisis today. Obstetricians routinely perform Caesarian sections that sideline the midwife’s skills and knowledge – while midwifery recruitment is falling, and the International Confederation of Midwives says the world needs one million more midwives.

The books also draw on my experiences as an international nursing and midwifery consultant, teacher and writer. Rooted in my practice, scholarship and advocacy in the UK and worldwide, they resonate with the challenges women worldwide face every day as mothers, leaders and midwives.

My commitment to women’s rights, social justice and high-quality health services has been the main driver of my unusual career - helping midwives and nurses to become more articulate, effective and influential. My roles have included Chief Nurse at the World Health Organization; editor of Nursing Times and Senior Nurse magazines; and working on Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s Commission on the Future of Nursing and Midwifery in England. My first book The Politics of Nursing (Heinemann 1985) was a wake-up call to the nursing and midwifery professions.

Join me on my adventures, as I track the nativity midwives through the art galleries, churches and palaces of Europe and beyond.