"By the mid-twentieth century, two things appeared destined for extinction in the United States: the practice of home birth and the profession of midwifery. In 1940, close to half of all U.S. births took place in the hospital, and the trend was increasing. By 1970, the percentage of hospital births reached an all-time high of 99.4%, and the obstetrician, rather than the midwife, assumed nearly complete control over what had become an entirely medicalized...

On the Nebraska prairie in 1880, eleven-year-old Emma finds a way to celebrate the spirit of Christmas while her mother, a midwife, delivers a baby on Christmas Eve.

Sarah Brandt, a midwife in turn-of-the-century New York City, turns to Sergeant Frank Malloy for help in finding the person who killed Gerda, a beautiful German immigrant who had fallen into the life of a "Charity Girl," one who traded her favors for lavish gifts and entertainment.

"The Crucible meets True Grit in this riveting adventure story of a fugitive girl, a mysterious gang of robbers, and their dangerous mission to transform the Wild West. In the year of our Lord 1894, I became an outlaw. The day of her wedding, 17 year old Ada's life looks good; she loves her husband, and she loves working as an apprentice to her mother, a respected midwife. But after a year of marriage and no pregnancy, in a town where barren women...

A moving, intimate, funny, and true-to-life look at the colorful stories of midwifery and families in East London in the '50s. Based on the bestselling memoirs of the late Jennifer Worth. When Jenny Lee first arrives in Poplar, she knows nothing about hardship, poverty, and life itself. But Jenny is brought up to speed fast once she joins a team of midwives who provide care to the poorest women.

The story of the Dionne Quintuplets, the world's first identical quintuplets to survive birth, told from the perspective of a midwife in training who helps bring them into the world. Reluctant midwife Emma Trimpany is just 17 when she assists at the harrowing birth of the Dionne quintuplets: five tiny miracles born to French farmers in hardscrabble Northern Ontario in 1934. Emma cares for them through their perilous first days and when the government...

Louise Watkins has her hands full. Her mother had been the town midwife, but when her daughter Alice died under her care, she refused to assist in a childbirth ever again. Since then Louise has assumed the work. She also takes care of Alice's six-year old, Charlotte, because the child's father was lost in World War I. But Louise's principal job is running the boardinghouse that is the family's main source of income. One day, Charlotte befriends a...

A desire to learn about her biological family leads nurse-midwife Lexie Jaeger to the heart of Pennsylvania Amish country. There she meets a mysterious lay-midwife who needs her help after an Amish client and her baby die.

"Hannah Levi is renowned throughout Venice for her gift at coaxing reluctant babies from their mothers--a gift aided by the secret "birthing spoons" she designed. But when a count implores her to attend to his wife, who has been laboring for days to give birth to their firstborn son, Hannah is torn. A Papal edict forbids Jews from rendering medical tratment to Christians, but the payment he offers is enough to ransom her beloved husband, Isaac, who...