My Favourite Books about Midwives

These are my favourite books featuring midwives. Please let me know if you’ve read others!

Fiction       

1. 1.      Midwives by Chris Bohjalian tops my list, although it is definitely NOT a book you should read when you are pregnant. I made the mistake of passing it on to my mom while planning a home birth. Oops! A great, absorbing story with an unforgettable protagonist. I just couldn’t wrap my head around the idea that a man wrote this one!

2.      Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult is not specifically about midwifery, but one of the main characters is a midwife. Everything she does is about life, but then her son commits mass murder …

3.      The Midwife’s Tale by Gretchen Moran Laskas is the story of an Appalacian midwife who cannot have children of her own. Moving.

4.      The Birth House by Ami McKay is a book after a doula’s own heart. What I loved about it is how convincingly McKay has built the historical details into her story. She raises so many issues that are still relevant to birthing women and to midwives almost a century after the story’s World War I setting.

Harlequin Medical Romances Featuring Midwives

1. Mistletoe, Midwife, Miracle Baby by Anne Fraser.
2. Midwife in the Family Way by Fiona McArthur.
3. It Started with a Pregnancy by Scarlet Wilson. This one touched me deeply, probably because it hit so close to home. Like the heroine, my daughter, Tamika, suffers from Type 1 diabetes. Also like the heroine, she considers becoming a midwife – and having lots of babies herself. Beautifully written.
4. Doorstep Delivery by Sarah Morgan had me in stitches – and then in tears. A delightful heroine and a delectable hero, what more need I say?

Memoirs by Midwives

1. Baby Catcher: Chronicles of a Modern Midwife by Penny Vincent.
2. Labour of Love: A Midwife’s Memoir by Cara Muhlhahn.
3. The Blue Cotton Gown: A Midwife’s Memoir by Patricia Harman.
4. Twelve Babies on a Bike: Diary of a Pupil Midwife by Dot May Dunn.