Baby Catcher: Chronicles of a Modern Midwife

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 336 pages
• Published by: Scribner April 1, 2003
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0743219341
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0743219341
• Book Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
• Weighs: 10.4 ounces

Reader Reviews
Although I am a strong advocate of midwife assisted home birth, I probably wouldn't have bought this book myself. That would have been my loss. My wife had borrowed it from our midwife, and I had run out of things to read, so I decided it would be a good way to pass the time. Mrs. Vincent's story is not only the story of herself, but it is the story of midwifery in the late 20th century in general. The early portion of the story, chronicling her time as a nursing student in the early 60s when natural childbirth was not at all accepted, serves as a pretty good summation of the things that my wife hated about our first daughter's hospital birth, and the reason we chose to have our second at home. In short, the ideological conflict between midwifery and hospital birth is this: Mrs. Vincent and those like her believe each labour should be treated as normal unless some serious complication presents itself. Obstetricians see labour as an inherently dangerous medical condition requiring their intervention. We follow the author through her career as she becomes a certified nurse midwife, gets privileges at a prestigious Bay Area hospital, and develops relationships with patients and doctors along the way. This also gives us a fascinating and humorous glimpse at the way American culture has changed over the last forty years. For whatever reason, home birth seems to attract a greater percentage of unusual people than one might find in a random sample of the population. They're all here: people who have pets at their birth, recovering drug addicts, hippies making the transition to suburban yuppie life, families with complicated emotional dynamics. The stories of individual births are great, and many are very uplifting, but the book as a whole is something of a downer. This is due to the time of its writing. In the early 90s, after many years of phenomenal gains, home birth had a dark period as the ability of midwives to secure malpractice insurance was severely constrained. Mrs. Vincent's own story provides a particularly tragic example of this. Thankfully, the situation has improved - a point she makes in a brief epilogue. The book also has a few helpful appendices indicating what supplies one ought to have at a homebirth, cost studies of midwife assisted vs. physician assisted birth and so on. Comment | | (Report this)