[REVIEW] Motherwit (Logan & Clark)

Motherwit: An Alabama Midwife's Story
By: Onnie Lee Logan & Katherine Clark
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Note: Book has multiple covers.

This book comes up quite a bit on recommended reading lists for birth books. It's the story of Onnie Lee Logan, an Alabama midwife, born in 1910.

This book follows her childhood, training, and life as a midwife all the way up until the 1980s. Through storytelling in her own dialect, she details not only the changes to midwifery during those years but the changes occurring in South Alabama as it relates to culture and discrimination. Ms. Logan worked among the poorest of the poor, both black and white. It was very interesting and saddening to see how these people were treated by medical professionals. Namely, they basically refused to treat them at all. Her story also gives the chronological decline of midwifery in the state of Alabama all the way thorough the outlaw of it, which is still in effect today.

Parts of this book infuriated me, as I knew it would. I think it is absolutely absurd the unfairness of not allowing midwives to practice. In addition, the history of Alabama in regards to race pretty much disgusts me. For the record, I'm allowed to say that because I was born and raised there. In that essence, it was a hard read.

One uplifting feature of this book was Onnie Lee Logan's unswerving faithfulness to God. More times than I can count, she credits God with her skills, abilities, and intuition. She also is extremely passionate about birth and babies, even stating that she would happily miss meals to deliver a baby. Like most passionate birth workers, she truly appreciates the honor and awe that surrounds the birth of a new life.

For a "granny midwife" delivering in poor conditions with patients who received little-to-no prenatal care, she sure had some amazing outcomes. I wish the book would have gone into a bit more detail about specific techniques used to achieve such results. However, this book was more about the story of her life versus her midwifery skills.

If you are selecting this book, just understand that you are getting a memoir of her life. This book is not specific to her years practicing as a midwife. Overall, it was a good read with good historical references.