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Helen Varney and Joyce Beebe Thompson. A History of Midwifery in the United States: The Midwife Said Fear Not. New York: Springer, 2016. xxviii + 495 pp. Ill. $110.00 (978-0-8261-2537-8).
In this hefty, 495-page textbook, certified nurse midwives Helen Varney and Joyce Beebe Thompson offer their version of the evolution and development of midwifery in the United States. Drawing on many of their own personal records (both Varney and Thompson served as presidents of the American College of Nurse Midwives [ACNM] and are emeriti professors at Yale and Penn, respectively), they attempt to tackle the "daunting task of writing midwifery's history" from the seventeenth century to the present (p. xvi). Twenty-two chapters address a wide range of themes affecting maternity care in the United States: from education to legislation to professionalization and organization. Along with Judith Pence Rooks's text, Midwifery and Childbirth in America, A History of Midwifery in the United States provides the most detailed, comprehensive manual of information relevant to midwifery's development in the United...