Baby Catcher: Chronicles of a Modern Midwife

Peggy Vincent

Apr 2002 · Sold by Simon and Schuster

About this ebook

An inspiring collection of birth stories by a charming midwife.

Each time she knelt to “catch” another wriggling baby—nearly three thousand times during her remarkable career—California midwife Peggy Vincent paid homage to the moment when pain bows to joy and the world makes way for one more. With every birth, she encounters another woman-turned-goddess: Catherine rides out her labor in a car careening down a mountain road. Sofia spends hers trying to keep her hyper doctor-father from burning down the house. Susannah gives birth so quietly that neither husband nor midwife notice until there's a baby in the room.

More than a collection of birth stories, however, Baby Catcher is a provocative account of the difficulties that midwives face in the United States. With vivid portraits of courage, perseverance, and love, this is an impassioned call to rethink technological hospital births in favor of more individualized and profound experiences in which mothers and fathers take center stage in the timeless drama of birth.

Ratings and reviews

This book changed the way I'll look at childbirth forever. I hated having to put it down. I even picked up on coping techniques for pain during labor. You don't always find a book that moves you and educates you! Great book!

This book literally changed the course of my existence.

Beautiful book!

About the author

Peggy Vincent became a licensed midwife specializing in home births in 1980, after fifteen years as a delivery room nurse, ten years as a natural childbirth teacher, and three years as the director of the first alternative birth center in the East Bay. Five years later, she became the first completely independent nurse midwife to be granted hospital privileges in the Berkeley area. Vincent lives in Oakland, California, with her husband and teenage son. Visit her online at BabyCatcher.net.