Midwife on Call: Tales of Tiny Miracles

by Agnes Light

Funny, poignant, and rich with period detail, Midwife on Call traces Agnes's touching journey from squeamish pupil to assured professional. Agnes Light trained as a nurse in the 1960s and went on to become a midwife—helping to bring new lives into the world for more than 30 years. After fainting from shock at the first birth she attended as a student, Agnes grew to adore her job and the lifelong friends that worked with her on the maternity ward. In her enchanting memoir, she recalls how she struggled at first with the strict rules of hospital etiquette, and the expectation that she would always know the right thing to do—from dealing with hysterical fathers to miracle multiple births, Agnes quickly learned she had to keep a cool head whatever the circumstances. This is a heartwarming portrait of a thoughtful and compassionate midwife.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, History, Medical, British Literature

278 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2011

Reviews

[Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a personal account of the working life of Agnes Light, who spent her life dedicated to the midwifery profession, one way or another. While I found the memoir to be very interesting, the way it has been written, read to me like I was just having a casual chat with a friend in the coffee shop. This isn't necessarily a negative aspect of the book, but it didn't always work for me as the reader. I found it fascinating to compare changes to midwives way of working back then to now. Some of it I definitely didn't agree with, such as home births. I completely agree that it should be the choice of the Mother, about where she gives birth, but if giving birth at home is going to endanger her or the unborn child, then she should definitely be in hospital, with professional care readily available.
Agnes Light has had a dedicated and incredible career in Midwifery, but I feel like she spoke like the opinions she gives in the book, are facts. I think that maybe this book could have done with a bit of editing. Overall, I think that even if you are not looking for a career in midwifery, you'd still find this book enjoyable.

[Malia Saldaña · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was very interesting. I love reading about Midwifes. It’s definitely not better than ‘Call The Midwife’, but still pretty good. 3.5 stars

[✟Roxanne✟(Death by Book Avalanche) ☠ · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the memoir of Agnes Light, a woman with a very strong passion for her working life. It's a story of her journey through life as a community midwife. This isn't the usual sort of book that I would pick up as I've never really thought about childbirth or the jobs of doctors and midwives. Since I am expecting my first baby I thought I would try and get some information, I've been trying self help books but have found them a bit too clinical and impersonal so I thought I would give this memoir a go. I was pleasantly surprised when I finished this...I really enjoyed it. I found the attitudes towards patients and staff within the NHS in the 60s to be fascinating compared to what it is like now. I knew it was different but just not how different. Agnes' journey was a brilliant read as it was like being in the room with these women as they gave birth, I felt really involved, emotionally and mentally. Some of her stories were heartwarming and filled with joy yet others were devastating and full of heartbreak. The reader is taken to both sides of the spectrum of midwifery, no stone left unturned. I like Agnes' attitude and outspokenness, she wasn't afraid to speak up for the rights of her patients. The only thing that grated on me a little bit was that she kept mentioning how open minded she is, how supportive and non-judgemental she is yet at one point she spoke about a certain scenario and explained how she wouldn't do it that way and she didn't understand why these women did the opposite to her...I wouldn't say that's very open minded as she wasn't aware of all the facts. I believe if she knew fully the circumstances of some of these women then she would of understood their reasoning for doing what they did. This is why I chose to give the book 4 stars instead of 5...I had a bit of a grumble. Overall, the book is fascinating and very descriptive, it doesn't sugarcoat things and it doesn't spoon feed you excess amounts of medical jargon so a pretty easy read. I found it very emotional in some places due to the trauma some of these women had to go through, it was always fully expressed and explained in great detail and so I wouldn't recommend this book to really sensitive readers, it could be quite overbearing at times, however, I found this was necessary in order to get the reader emotionally involved. I borrowed this from the library and am very glad that I did, I will be looking for other similar stories to read.

[Redfox5 · Rating 3 out of 5]

This started out dull but steadily got better as I read on. Not in the same league as 'Call the Midwife' but still interesting enough.

This is set in the 70s/80s and it's pretty amazing to see how many changes have been made in the maternity department since then. It was sad when she was talking about the hospitals/maternity wards being shut down. I was born in Heatherwood Hospital in Ascot, sadly that no longer has a maternity ward.

I know Agnes was all for a home birth but personally I'd much rather be in hospital, just in case! And I also don't think people should be allowed to sue the NHS, I'm not sure how this helps anyone in the long run and it's a wonder anyone ever gets into medicine with all that legal business hanging over them.

If you are one of those people who likes to sit down to 'One Born Every Minute' each week. Then this is the book for you.

I read this in Tenerife whilst staying at the Globales Tamaimo Tropical hotel. The hotel was a total dive so thank goodness I brought some holiday reads to keep me going. :)

[Marie Carlino · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book looks at what unites the majority of women- pregnancy and childbirth. These are the true stories of a midwife who has experienced thousands of deliveries over thirty years as a midwife. She has endured some horrific deliveries but also seen joy enter so many people's lives. She has attended many different types of births, emergency caesareans and 100% natural home births. In her opinion the type of birth, where it occurs and the people in attendance influences the experience for everyone involved. I would recommend this book for all women, whether or not they intend to have children in the future. Also recommended for men who have impending fatherhood.

[Kath · Rating 2 out of 5]

The success of Jennifer Worth's 'Call the Midwife ' has spawned many of these cheap imitations. I am not decrying the author's hard work or experience, more the self righteous tone and the lack of an efficient editor. Many opinions are repeated and the writing style does not flow smoothly. Emotional connection was lacking despite the poignancy of some of the stories and there were too many occasions where Agnes painted herself as the heroine of the hour. This book just makes me admire Jennifer Worth even more.

[Annette Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating.

Such a fascinating insight to Agnes Lights life, both in a personal and professional level. I too trained as a nurse at the same time as Agnes so can identify with all the changes she talked about in the NHS, and like her, agree most have these changes have been detrimental to the public. I have witnessed the closure of the small maternity homes and the removal of the much feared. Matrons. I certainly wasn't lucky enough to have a midwife like Agnes when I have birth to my two children. Enjoyed this book very much.

[Glenys]

Agnes saw many changes over thirty years as a midwife in England. Many for the better but many that medicalised childbirth.
She tells tales of little miracles, some are sad and others delightful and some even amusing.
She is outspoken in the final chapter about the failure of the NHS to adequately meet the needs of mothers and midwives.
As this book was published in 2011, one can only hope that there has been improvement since and the system has been geared more toward making childbirth a special, moving and deeply personal experience for families.

[Helena · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story of a somewhat self-righteous midwife, whose contempt for obstericians and modern clinical science shines through in every chapter. Even worse are her outdated views on fathers (lacking) ability for love and care of their newborn babies. Interesting read, partly due to these very prejudices (which the author repeatedly assures that she doesn’t have...)

No comparison to “Call the midwife” and sequels by Jennifer Worth, which are outstanding. Read those!

[Tegan Martyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, what an incredible book this one was! Super inspiring for me to read as well!
Agnes Light tells her story of being a midwife over the last 30 years, the good times & the sad times, explaining how much she has seen the National Health Service change during this period of time.
Makes me want to pursue my dream of becoming a midwife even more now, absolutely incredible story ❤❤

[Dora · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not my usual choice of book but I enjoyed it and found Agnes Light’s story interesting. She trained as a midwife quite late and spent 30 years pursuing the career she loved. I actually preferred her style to Call The Midwife’s Jennifer Worth as I found her sickly sweet and often patronising.

[Donna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book it was such an interesting insight into the joys and stresses of pregnancy and labour. The stories Agnes told of her own experience as a midwife reminded me that these ladies are truly special individuals who do such an amazing job.

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story is about how a nurse takes on rigorous training to become a midwife. You may find this book on book share

[Julie Makin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a lovely heartfelt account of Agnes’s life as a midwife. Having dedicated her life to the profession it’s clear how much she truly cares about her work.

[Lucy Dawson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not as good as Call the Midwife. Too much repetition and expressing her opinions as fact and not enough anecdotes for my liking.

[Amy Mobley · Rating 3 out of 5]

December mini-challenge: a few of my favorite things (girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes)

[Verity Brook · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading about how childbirth and maternity care has changed over many years, would definitely read more midwife based books after reading this one!

[Lydia Reid · Rating 2 out of 5]

After 14 years NHS admin experience I've picked up a fair bit of medical knowledge, suffice to say this over explained everything & was a little patronising. Not nearly enough real life stories.

[Margaret Baseley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having three children of my own I found it very interesting reading it from the Midwives perspective.

[Helena Huang · Rating 3 out of 5]

This title is the inverse of the popular BBC drama Call the Midwife and I would recommend it to anyone who is a fan of CTM. There are many aspects of this book that are similar to CTM. The show, CTM although long running, I would doubt that it would go into the 1970s. The advantage of this book is that there is a time span of over 50 years, so we do get to hear this amazing midwife tell her stories about how childbirth experiences have evolved over time. In addition to the midwife side of her, I really enjoyed reading about her family life and it is truly amazing on what she has managed to accomplish despite all the challenges that life threw at her.

However, the reason for the three star review vs a five star is that my interest started to dip a bit as soon as she finished telling her life story and started focusing on all these home births that she attendes. Excuse the pun but she seems to be pushing home births way too hard. I also find it boring that vitrually all the births she talked about were home births. I love hearing birth stories and watching birth shows but I like variety. I prefer to watch shows or read books about how midwives assist in a variety of different births and help the women have positive experiences in all types of births , from drug free natural birth to c section and everything in between. At the risk of being rude, I must say that reading half a book consisting almost entirely of homebirths is like watching a Chinese hospital birth show series where the c section rates are sky high and after watching ppl get cut open for what seems like 100 times by the end of the series.. it doesn’t even scare me anymore it just gets boring to see the birth resolve in the same way every single time. Similarly, a story of a woman giving birth in the serenity of her own home surrounded by loved ones is quite lovely to hear, but after hearing the midwife tell the same or similar birth story of like 20 different women it makes me yawn. I will finish this book because she does give readers some interesting facts about childbirth and I want to hear about all the babies.

I would have also liked to hear more about her family life after all four of her children have been born. It would have been nice to have a better balance of personal life vs professional life throughout the book. Unfortunately it seems like she switches completely from personal to professional stories immediately after her fourth and last child has been born.

[Simone Perren · Rating 2 out of 5]

So I really liked the premise of this book, it's quite like other books in the genre such as the One Born Every Minute book or the Call the Midwife series. So I was all set up to really like it but I have to say, I didn't.

I really didn't warm to the author Agnes Light and when she was talking about her experiences, good or bad I always felt like she was trying to do a one-up on the people around her. Like, this mistake was made by me but so-and-so made a much bigger mistake over there. It seemed childish and petty to bring up other problems that other midwives had encountered especially when in a few situations, the baby did not survive. Petty but also cruel.

I also know that Agnes Light and I have a difference of opinion when it comes to the medicalisation of the birthing process and the role of the NHS in such processes, but this would not automatically put me off of reading a book. I usually enjoy reading other people's opinions but they are opinions. Agnes Light made it seem as though all her opinions were in fact 'facts' so knowing nothing about childbirth you would forgiven for thinking she was right. I disagreed with the lack of foundation for this book and the way in which the thoughts were put across.

For that reason, I had to give this book a 1.5/2 stars.

[Kathryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really interesting memoir about the author's time as a midwife, from the start of her training and through her career as a nurse and as a community midwife. Before reading this book I didn't know much about what midwives did, or even very much about childbirth in general. This book certainly taught me a few things that I didn't know. I was even quite shocked by some of the attitudes of medical professionals mentioned in this book.

The book is written in quite a laid back style and reading it feels like having a chat with an old friend as the author shares interesting and funny anecdotes about births she has attended.

I'd definitely recommend this book for anyone interested in a career in nursing or midwifery. But even if you're not interested in those careers you'll still enjoy this book.

[Janice Workman · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice story about the growth of Midwifery in various shapes and forms in England. It looks at hospital births, homebirths, birthing center births - differences and similarities. Also looked at what was expected of those attending the births - different for all depending on where, what role they werte in and what their educational history was. I actually read a paperback, but can't seem to convince the site that there is such an edition....
Some very realistic events, the ups and downs we've come to expect in the practice and patients. For more info on what is different from where you live compared to England - it's worth a read.

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

Done reading “ Midwife on Call” for Agnes Light. I had started reading the book a year ago, but I gave up reading after a few chapters. In general, the book is not bad. It talks about a midwife journey in UK and how the maternity cares developed in some ways and set back in others. I found the first chapters so mind-numbing because the author focused on her life, but it became interesting when she talked about women experience with giving births. However, I agonized with the last chapters as the turn out to tell about boring information about maternity ward and hospital

[Aoibhínn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is very well written and the stories it contains are very touching and interesting. The writing really draws you in and it shows you what it was like to work as a midwife in the 1960’s and 1970’s. This book is an excellent piece of social history showing the changing world of medical practice and the NHS. This novel is not as good as ’Call the Midwife’ but it is still a good read!

[Karolien · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love real life stories from people in caring professions. I devoured all the call the midwife memoires by nurse Lee/ Jennifer Worth.
This one came quite close to it. The midwife who wrote these memoires had to deal with a lot of hardship. Seeing society change into a less caring one. Motherhood is something quite special and the experience of giving birth as a midwife is certainly every expectant mother should read.

[Carole · Rating 4 out of 5]

Agnes Light went to train as a nurse but became pregnant.
Later she was able to do a short midwifery course, which she trained as a midwife .
The book basically goes through the working life of Agnes until she retired.

The changes in things over the years .

A short easy read biography style book

[Heather · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't enjoy this book as much as most of the other midwife memoirs I've read. There was more time than I would have liked focusing at the beginning on her life and on her general training and then at the end on her teaching career. A lot of info about the NHS system. The birth stories tended to be more shallow than I would like. Just not what I'm looking in a midwife book.

[Jo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picked this one up from the library thinking it was the book the new TV series on BBC1 was based on - but I was wrong. But I wasn't disappointed at all. Really well written it follows the authors career in midwifery from the late 1960's all the way up to not too many years ago. Very interesting.

[Teresa Lavoie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book!!

This book was so interesting I put it down only to make dinner.I think the author should be commended for going back to get her degree to teach.Sounds like she would be an amazing teacher