Does the return of perennial favorite Call the Midwife have you jonesing for more midwifery goodness? Never fear — we’ve found eight books on the subject (mostly featuring first-hand accounts from the midwives themselves) to accompany season eight. So if you can’t get enough of your favorite nuns and/or midwives on TV, get thee to the library and check one (or more, we won’t tell) out!
Call the Midwife: A True Story of the East End in the 1950s by Jennifer Worth
What better way to kick off a midwifery reading list than a series of personal accounts written by midwives? Our first pick has to be Call the Midwife, the memoir penned by Jennifer Worth which inspired the television show we all know and love. Worth’s book, which she wrote in response to to a midwifery journal article claiming that midwives were underrepresented in literature, covers humorous and poignant stories from her time working as a midwife in London’s East End.
Twelve Babies on a Bike: Diary of a Pupil Midwife by Dot May Dunn
Love midwives on bikes in 1950s England, but want to get out of London in favor of the English Midlands? Check out Twelve Babies on a Bike. With an unusual style, this memoir, created from Dunn’s diary entries, tells the story of the 12 deliveries she was required to complete by herself to finish her midwifery training.
Japanese American Midwives: Culture, Community, and Health Politics, 1880-1950 by Susan L. Smith
Curious about how immigration can affect birthing practices? In Japanese American Midwives, Smith uses the stories of individual midwives to explain the cultural role of the midwife as both a creator of the Japanese American community and a force for conservation of traditional Japanese birthing culture. Smith analyses the impact of Japan’s policies on the role of the midwife and its impact on public health.
The Lady’s Hands, Lion’s Heart - A Midwife’s Saga by Carol Leonard
Looking for something closer to home? Carol Leonard’s The Lady’s Hands, Lion’s Heart details her time practicing in rural New Hampshire in the mid 1970s. Leonard chronicles her career as a midwife, and her work to advocate midwifery (she was the first midwife certified to practice legally in New Hampshire and has been practicing for over 30 years) in addition to her turbulent personal life.
Why Not Me?: The Story of Gladys Milton, Midwife by Wendy Bovard and Gladys Milton
Why Not Me? digs into the story of a Milton’s childhood experiences working with her midwife aunt treating women of color who were refused care by white doctors, followed by a long career as a lay midwife. While Milton was recruited by the state of Florida as part of a plan to improve rural health care, she eventually went to court to retain her right to practice after the state asked her to retire.
Listen to Me Good: The Story of an Alabama Midwife by Margaret Charles Smith
Looking for stories of traditional midwifery in the African American community? Listen to Me Good tells the story of a rural lay midwife who experienced shifting laws that both supported her practice and later prohibited her work as an important healthcare touchstone in a community with very limited access to medical care. Smith recounts some of the thousands of births she attended over the course of her almost five decade-long career in this oral history.
Baby Catcher: Chronicles of a Modern Midwife by Peggy Vincent
If you’re searching for a chronicle of the difficulties midwives in the US faced in the mid-1980s, Peggy Vincent’s Baby Catcher might be the book for you. In addition to the birth tales you’ll find in other first-hand accounts, Vincent details the challenges she faced on the road to becoming the first independent nurse midwife with hospital privileges in the Berkeley area.
Spiritual Midwifery by Ina May Gaskin
If you know anything about midwifery in the United States, you’ve almost certainly come across Ina May Gaskin’s Spiritual Midwifery, an autobiography that is generally considered the catalyst that brought midwifery back into the American mainstream in the 1960s and 70s. Gaskin details the creation of “The Farm” where she and her colleagues supervise births, tell birth stories, and even gets into specific medical details of childbirth in this seminal midwifery book.
So there you have it, profiles of midwives from across the country and around the world from a wide variety of circumstances. Do you have other midwifery book recommendations? Let us know on Facebook, and don’t miss Call The Midwife, Sundays at 8PM on WGBH 2.
