Midwifery Wisdom

Choose where you’d like to buy

*We have affiliate accounts with some retailers, which support The Birth Information Project.

Midwives know things.

Things they learn from decades of sitting with women, watching, listening, and paying attention to what actually happens during birth rather than what the textbooks say is supposed to happen.

Dr Sara Wickham has spent her career studying midwifery knowledge in all its forms. In Midwifery Wisdom, she brings together the academic and the irreverent; stories and science; the rigorously evidenced and the delightfully strange.

Her book moves fluently between the philosophy of woman-centred care and the practical wisdom of the birth room, examining how mainstream maternity systems define and manage birth, and what knowledgeable midwives do instead.

Among many other topics, she explores how midwives use their senses to assess labour progress, why the maths behind obstetric boundaries needs rethinking, the potential value of postnatal tea and toast, and when to put your gloves on. She looks at the role of risk in modern medical care, and whether cats can tell us anything about birth. And she considers questions too taboo for polite conversation but too important to ignore.

Inside, you’ll find:

• The thinking behind woman-centred care; the values, priorities, and decision-making processes that distinguish the midwifery approach from the obstetric model
• A frank examination of how mainstream maternity systems define, measure, and manage birth, and what holistic midwives do instead
• Explorations of midwives’ ways of knowing: from clinical pattern recognition to sensory awareness, and the wisdom that passes between practitioners
• Practical birth wisdom for students and experienced midwives, including labour support, placental birth, and navigating emergencies
• Challenges to assumptions that have gone unquestioned for too long, from the maths of “normal” to the meaning of postnatal tea and toast
• Reflections on how future midwives can build on the knowledge of the past, and use the principles of midwifery to shape what comes next

What are people saying?

“A collection of gems of insight derived from a career spent listening and questioning in midwifery and research.”

Mavis Kirkham, Professor Emerita, Midwifery.

“Wisdom! Yes, this book represents the wisdom that has gone into and come out of midwifery over lifetimes, and I so appreciate what Sara Wickham has done in presenting that wisdom to readers.”

Barbara Katz Rothman, PhD, Sociologist. Author of The Biomedical Empire.

“This book is an absolute masterpiece. It’s amazing, beautiful, heart warming whilst heart breaking, hilarious whilst also poignant, so cleverly written yet not intimidating. I have laughed, cried, felt nostalgic while also hopeful and excited for the change it will bring. It will become my new ‘bible’ as there are so many chapters that I want to go back to and re-read over and over again. All of the things I’m trying to teach and help newer midwives understand is here in your book, so beautifully articulated.”

Emma Mills, Consultant Midwife.

“I loved it. I can see it being a book I’d have clung onto as a student midwife.”

Mia Fothergill, midwife and voice artist.

“Midwifery Wisdom is Sara at her most Sara: curious, analytical, critical, funny, and deeply serious about the things that matter.“

Some of the questions explored in Midwifery Wisdom

• Why the concept of ‘normal’ is so contentious, and how midwives have totally different ways of defining and working with normality.
• Why some aspects of our current approach to birth deserve scrutiny.
• How midwives ‘drink tea intelligently’ while being with women.
• Why so many accepted “truths” about birth deserve another look.
• Going beyond the ‘textbook cervix’, received wisdom, and obstetric notions of risk.
• Midwives’ decision-making in labour, and how this differs from the obstetric charts.
• Practical midwifery wisdom for pregnancy, birth, the postnatal period, and birth emergencies.
• How evidence, experience, and intuition work together in good midwifery.
• How we can reclaim ‘acts of midwifery’, even in high-tech settings.

↑ Back to buying options for Midwifery Wisdom

Please support creators 💜 It isn’t always legal to lend books if you’re running a business, and it can harm the ability of artists, writers and other creators to make an income from their own work if you do. If your clients can’t afford to buy a book, please ask them to borrow it from a public library, and encourage your local library to buy a few copies. Public libraries pay authors when they loan their books. Loads more info here.

---

---

---

Books to help you become informed and make the decisions that are right for you…

---

---