Aussie Midwives
Fiona McArthur
This collection of stories about Australian midwives couldn’t come at a better time than for Mother’s Day. The role of midwives in looking after mothers from conception to birth and beyond is something that should be inherently built into society. This non-fiction work unpacks some of the roles of midwives around Australia.
For me, this had a lot of backstory of each of the midwives so that you got a good feeling for who they were as people, as well as within their jobs. I would have loved to have more about the actual mothers and children. Every birth story is different, and I have a strange fascination with reading about them.
It’s fascinating how many different midwifery roles there are – in a plane, a tiny fishing shack or somewhere else remote. That’s the wonder of working in Australia – there’s always some odd place that a nurse or midwife will find herself going.
All of this was very birth positive, and trying to put women back in control of their bodies. After all, birth is a process which has been taking place for years without medical intervention. Midwives are there to put the brakes on obstetricians that want to force a baby – even if that shouldn’t be their role.
I don’t know whether I can give this stars. It’s non-fiction, and its very enjoyable. It will leave people smiling. That being said, I have a feeling it is more written for women than men. That was such a sexist thing for me to say, but I don’t think most men are comfortable thinking about child-birth, as evidenced by the number of fainting husbands there were in this novel!
