Reading Recommendations for a future CNM student?

Specialties CNM

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Hi there,

I'm a newbie student at the beginning of my nursing education (1 year down!), and though my CNM credential is a long way off, midwifery is the reason I decided to dive into the nursing field. I am an information-seeking type of person, and an avid reader, and I would love to have some book/journal/ etc recommendations to help keep me current and engaged as I power through the rest of my general nursing education.

I have already read a LOT of what seem to be sort of 'classics,' as well as your basic doula cannon- All the Farm/Gaskin books, basically everything on the DONA reading list, 'Birth as an American Rite of Passage,' 'The politics of Breastfeeding,' 'Pushed' by Jennifer Block, 'The birth Partner,' Lamaze, Bradley, Hypnobirthing, several midwives memoirs etc, etc.

I feel like I'm running out of things to read besides textbooks (nothing against textbooks- I like them too). I also feel that lots of what I've read is maybe no longer as relevant as it once was.

What are your favorite journals to keep up on, both for recreational reading and keeping pace with EBP?

Favorite books, whether 'informational' or 'inspirational'?

Is there a good resource online to find out this sort of thing? ACNM's most recent book recommendation is from 2008.

Also documentaries!

Thanks!

Specializes in OB.
Actually, I'm confused now. I have read two "midwife memoirs" in the past five years. One was Baby Catcher, and one was another that I don't know what it was. One I loved, one I hated. I can't remember which was which, but I think Baby Catcher was the one I loved. I need to figure out which one I hated. I think the one I hated was the book by the midwife who attended the "Business of Being Born" person. Ricki Lake. I think? She was somehow related to Ricki Lake in some way.

Hmm, not sure. I know the midwife who attended Ricki Lake's homebirth, and she hasn't written any books.

I hated Baby Catcher because it was called a "memoir," and to me, at least half of the stories/anecdotes/births seemed too unbelievable, or heavily embellished, to be true. Maybe I'm wrong, but I just got a fake and cheesy vibe from it.

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Specializes in Nurse-Midwife.

Labor of Love, Cara Muhlhahn

Labor of Love: A Midwife's Memoir by Cara Muhlhahn — Reviews, Discussion, Bookclubs, Lists

Memoir written by the BOBB midwife.

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Specializes in Nurse-Midwife.

As far as midwife "stories" go- I enjoyed reading Baby Catcher. And it was written very much in a storytelling fashion. I read it a long time ago, before I started attending births - so maybe it becomes less enjoyable when you're comparing it to your own experience. As a person who was just learning about the idea of midwifery at the time - I enjoyed it.

[spoiler alert!] The home cesarean on the dining room table from the book Midwives? Oh for crying out loud. That - and the fact that everyone in Oprah's book club then thought that lay midwives did home surgery with kitchen knives - that is what made me shake my head with that book.

Now that I think about it - maybe it wasn't really the story that bothered me, but the reaction to it: "What if you accidentally kill a woman by doing a home c-section because you don't know she's not dead?"

For. Crying. Out. Loud.

Fiction. People.

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Specializes in OB.

Oh duh, thanks queenanneslace! Cara is the main midwife featured in the film who was going to deliver the other producer, Abby, before she went into preterm labor. She absolutely did write a book, although I haven't read it. Ricki Lake used a different midwife for her own homebirth, which is why I was blanking.

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Specializes in OB-Gyn/Primary Care/Ambulatory Leadership.

Yep, that's the one. I did NOT like that one at all. I did not find her likeable. Now I want to read it again to remember why I disliked it so.

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