Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Call the Midwife

I just finished watching Season 1 of the delightful medical drama series Call the Midwife. The series aired in the fall of 2012 to wide critical acclaim in both the U.S. and Great Britain.  Season 2 premiers Sunday, March 31st on PBS and I can't wait! The story is told through the eyes of newly qualified nurse midwife Jenny Lee. Jenny takes her first job at what she thought was a private hospital in East London, but Nonnatus House turns out to be a maternity clinic operated by nuns. The Sisters of St. Raymond Nonnatus along with lay midwives serve the slums of East London in the 1950's. A wonderful medical drama about the professional and personal lives of the midwives.The drama stars; Jessica Raine, Miranda Hart, Cliff Parisi, Jenny Agutter, Pam Ferris, Judy Parfitt and Vanessa Redgrave. The TV series is based on the book The midwife: a memoir of birth, joy and hard times by Jennifer Worth.

Novels featuring midwives:
Midwives by Chris Bohjalian
The time 1981, and Sibyl Danforth has been a devoted midwife in the rural community of Reddington, Vermont, for fifteen years.  One winter night, during a strong winter storm, Sibyl takes desperate measures to save a baby's life. She performs an emergency Cesarean section on its mother, who appears to have died in labor. But what if --as Sibyl's assistant later charges--the patient wasn't already dead, and it was Sibyl who accidentally killed her?

Amish Midwife by Mary Starns Clark
A desire to learn about her biological family leads nurse-midwife Lexie Jaeger to the heart of Pennsylvania Amish country, where she meets a mysterious lay-midwife who needs her help after an Amish client and her baby die.

Murder on Astor Place by Victoria Thompson
Following a predictable delivery in a rooming house, turn-of-the-century midwife Sarah Brandt discovers that another boarder, a young girl, has been murdered and, despite the interference of the girl's powerful family, joins forces with Sergeant Frank Malloy to find the killer before er can strike again. Gaslight mystery series features midwife and amateur detective.

Staircase of a Thousand Steps by Masha Hamilton
Set in Transjordan before the 1976 war with Israel, Jammana and Faridah, the midwife, find themselves trapped between the old world and the new.

No comments:

Post a Comment