On paper, Morocco looks like a public health success story. Since 1995, women dying in childbirth declined by 64%. Yet under the official statistics is a different story—riots erupted in the Rif region in 2017, in part over lack of health care. Midwives are burning out and leaving the profession. History demonstrates that health issues, the lack of clean water, food, and health care, is often a catalyst for political unrest. Addressing women’s health requires knowing the local contexts under official statistics, understanding how women experience birth in Morocco, and how midwives work in society. I propose to use the history of midwifery, oral interviews, and insights from gender studies to address contemporary global health challenges for birthing mothers and midwives. This paper engages an essential question: Are biomedical midwives the answer to providing Moroccan women with the health care they need in pregnancy, birth, and infant health? A 2014 series in the Lancet thinks so; the authors argue that maternal and infant health care in low and middle income countries is medicalized, fragmented, and delivered through clinics. The midwife is the Lancet solution—a community-based caregiver who gives holistic, woman-centered care and who mediates between localities and hospital health teams. But are midwives the solution? Preliminary interviews suggest the answer is complex. In High Atlas villages, residents say the midwife in the local clinic is antagonistic and women avoid her; the clinic often stands empty, or local women prefer traditional birth attendants, or the midwife doesn’t come to clinic, all scenarios common in countries with fragile health systems across. Rabat midwifery professors point out that new midwifery graduates are sent to rural areas to work alone, or to understaffed urban hospitals, and the midwife has little legal protection in the event of a negative medical outcome. The birth challenges in Morocco are thus social, gender, health system, policy, historical, legal, and political—then medical. This paper explores how medical history and oral interviews can provide essential context to guide our understanding and help draft effective health policy. Global health interventions often fail because WHO practice guidelines are prepared in western countries out of step with local realities. This challenge is exacerbated by the “context-blind,” “evidence-based” data collection process that dominates global health work. History can expand our understanding of birth and midwifery, of women’s experiences, needs, and voices, and help us understand the birth process in Morocco past and present.