The term came to my attention today whilst following the tweets of a friend whose wife is in labor. At first I thought it was a typo, but then I realized he was using the term regularly. So then I thought perhaps he had a dyslexic relationship with the word midwife, except that an internet search turns up thousands and thousands of references to "widwife" on the web. However, the dictionary and etymology sites that I've consulted thus far have no such entry. Is this just some kind of massively common misspelling/typographical error committed upon the word "midwife"? I find that hard to believe, given the position of the letters "m" and "w" on the keyboard. What gives? Anyone have the scoop? Even Wikipedia is silent on the issue, though Wiktionary offered the oh-so-helpful definition of "midwife". If it's not an extraordinarly common error, does it signify some specially qualified midwife? Or one who works in some niche in the industry? Perhaps a cultural variant? HELP!

I wonder if it dates back to the dates when "witch" referred to "wise woman who knew about herbs", one of the earliest forms of doctors. Could it be a "witch midwife"?

the low numbers (only 2900 google hits) make me think it is a typo.

Not a term you see everyday and it's not a misspell either....
"Widwife" is a new government benefit for men who are widowed....the "widwife" visits all the men and cooks/cleans/shags them all like a substitute wife.