Into These Hands: Wisdom from Midwives

by Geradine Simkins (Editor)

Shares essays, from twenty-five midwives, that speak directly to what really matters to the right to have safe and satisfying births.

Genres: Nonfiction, Health

370 pages, Paperback

First published April 16, 2011

Reviews

[Elizabeth Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a treasure! I'm so grateful to Geradine Simkins for compiling this large collection of midwives' stories. She's preserved an important history that otherwise might have been lost. These stories also hold tremendous wisdom--about women's bodies, about instinct, about our power to transform and be transformed--that our culture desperately needs. Here's a taste of Simkins' conclusion:

"Midwives have described "woman" in a way that the ancients once did, and many indigenous cultures still do. We see woman as a living environment, the first environment, and the chalice in which all human life gestates. We honor woman as the sacred portal through which all human life emerges. We perceive woman to be the sustenance by which newborn human life thrives. We believe woman to be perfectly and elegantly designed for biological functions of mythic proportions. We believe that woman is a reflection of the divine. We believe there is an invisible domain of the soul through which our children must pass to enter a human body. We believe birth is not just physiological; it is a soul journey."

"Working in concert with nature--rather than against it--may be our key to survival, not just in the realm of women's procreative lives, but in every realm." --Into These Hands 332

[Madrona Wienges · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved the rich stories in this collection. Inspiring and admirable. With the political struggles of Midwifery being a very important issue dear to my heart, I loved reading about the efforts made to establish rights for Women to offer Midwifery Care. The strides that have been made by this generation of brave women fills me with Gratitude. It has not been an easy path for them...yet, their stories are filled of love, wisdom and humor. Beautiful.

[Librariann]

I read some of this and then it had to go back to the library.