Call the Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times

Summary (from the publisher): An unforgettable story of the joy of motherhood, the bravery of a community, and the hope of one extraordinary woman

At the age of twenty-two, Jennifer Worth leaves her comfortable home to move into a convent and become a midwife in post war London's East End slums. The colorful characters she meets while delivering babies all over London-from the plucky, warm-hearted nuns with whom she lives to the woman with twenty-four children who can't speak English to the prostitutes and dockers of the city's seedier side-illuminate a fascinating time in history. Beautifully written and utterly moving, The Midwife will touch the hearts of anyone who is, and everyone who has, a mother.

 

Summary (from the publisher): Author Jennifer Worth's memoir covers the period of the 1950s when she worked as a midwife in the London Docklands. Housed in a nunnery, Jennifer and other young midwives traveled by foot and bicycle to care for expectant mothers, deliver babies, and provide postnatal care in the home. Most of the patients came from low-income families with few resources and lived in primitive conditions in old, crowded tenements. In the age before contraception, the midwives' skills were in high demand. Worth decided to write this memoir upon reflecting how little attention midwives receive in literature or anywhere for their service. As the age of midwives passed, and most children are increasingly delivered by doctors in hospitals, Worth decided to record her memories in honor of the work of all midwives throughout the ages: "They ought to be lauded to the skies, by everyone. But they are not. The responsibility they carry is immeasurable. Their skill and knowledge are matchless, yet they are completely taken for granted, and usually overlooked" (16).

 

Rather than a continuous narrative thread, most of the chapters of this book function as standalone anecdotes about individual patients, with the exception of some longer tales that are covered in numerous chapters. The stories that Worth relates are truly remarkable - such as the children found alone in a filthy apartment and "a heap of excrement and dirty nappies in a corner was crawling with maggots" (54). I particularly enjoyed the story of the Spanish woman who, with Jennifer's help, was delivered of her 24th and 25th children. Other moving stories included an elderly woman who lost all her children in the workhouse, a young girl who got caught in the web of prostitution, and a breech baby born at home on Christmas day.

 

Worth is not shy about being brutally honest about her opinion of her patients. One woman who is suffering from syphilis is referred to as "a revolting creature" (69). Although her judgment and revulsion bothered me at times, she is also quick to admit when she wrongly viewed patients. For instance, Jennifer later amends her judgment of the woman, saying she "was not a disgusting old bag, she was a heroine. She kept the family together, in appalling conditions, and the children looked happy" (72). In these glimpses, the reader is able to see Jennifer maturing and growing as both a midwife and a person and learning how difficult life truly is for her patients.

 

I do wish that this book could have had a stronger narrative progression rather than functioning almost like linked short stories. Additionally, Worth is consistently vague about her life before becoming a midwife, revealing next to nothing about her childhood and past, other than a failed love affair and the appearance of a childhood friend named Jimmy. Seemingly important details are skipped over in mere sentences, such as casually mentioning that she missed her final midwifery exam "due to a broken shoulder" (201). This event is never referred to again. On the other hand, despite these irregularities, the stories that Worth tells are truly remarkable and capture a time period and a form of medicine that is worth preserving.  I was riveted by the stories of extreme poverty and the rough conditions that the midwives encountered and the perseverance of their patients to carry on in the midst of such hardship.

 

Stars: 3.5