Dame Hilda Lloyd: First President of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists

Since earliest times, women have been looked after by women in their confinements. By the Middle Ages the profession of the female midwife, often an experienced older woman, was well recognised. The service of a male doctor was often frowned upon. Indeed, in 1522 a Dr Wertt of Hamburg was burned at the stake for attending a delivery dressed as a woman.