I Reviewed The Birth House by Ami McKay on Goodreads! (4 stars)

The Birth House by Ami McKay

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As a birth worker, I was somewhat excited to find a work of fiction about a midwife. To my surprise and joy this book was not so much a story about midwifery as it was about the coming of age of a young woman at the turn of the 20th century.

But being that it is a book rooted in midwifery and portrays obstetrics in its earliest state, I do feel the need to comment on my thoughts about this aspect of the plot. When I first started reading, I had just found out I was pregnant and interviewing homebirth midwives. As most people know, there is quite a schism in the homebirth community about the state of licensing of the profession of midifery with many consumers and midwives concerned that licensing will restrict their choices in birthing. Reading this tale, which shows the blend of science, trial and error and superstition that lies at the root of traditional midwifery was almost too much for me to handle. I put the book down for several weeks, furious that this book was seeking to glorify the primitive and portray medicine as not in the best interest of women.

But when I finally picked the book back up this week, I found myself riveted, finishing the final hundred pages in two days. The message was far from glorifying traditional midwifery over medicine. Rather, seeing the early state of obstetrics as clumsy and ineffective and the primitive and mostly luck-based practice of midwifery made me glad to be giving birth a hundred years after the events in this book took place. Our choices are so much greater and actual than they were then.

It also fueled my anger at those who seek to continue this ancient battle, posing midwifery and medicine at odds, ignoring the leaps we have made in medical science to save those moms and babies who would have died. The portrayal of pre-eclampsia (without naming it) was downright frightening to read as a birth professional, when I realized that they didn't know what pre-eclampsia was at that time!

Bottom line, this is an extremely well-written historical novel and I highly recommend it to anyone, especially women and especially birth workers. But I do feel that it could be entertaining and a good read for anyone.

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