The best midwifery book: Motherwit An Alabama Midwife's Story by Onnie Lee Logan as told to Katherine Clark 1991, Plume Books "An amazing story.  A heroic woman and life after my own heart." - Alice Walker "A life well lived unfolds in this exuberant, unfettered telling of a midwife's story.   Logan, born circa 1910 into a large, rural, God-fearing family in Sweetwater, Ala., recalls how, only a generation removed from slavery, she entered into her life's work. During 40 years she delivered hundreds of babies, mostly to poor white and black mothers in the depths of the Depression, providing help when doctors were either scarce or unwilling.  Her oral biography is at once a mini-history of Southern midwifery, essentially a black phenomenon in the region, and a full-circle view of her career from initial toleration to lauded acceptance by medical professionals. In Logan's rich, regional speech as she talks with Clark, who teaches at the University of Alabama, a strong, faith-filled woman is heard; her eloquent memoir is vivid Americana." - Publisher's Weekly Onnie Lee Logan story interweaves hard work, an abiding faith in God, a deep respect for Afro-American folklore and tradition, and myriad details of the process of midwifery. Interviewer Katherine Clark stitches together the flow of words seamlessly without cleaning them up; Logan comes across as a garrulous old friend rocking on the porch, whiling away a hot afternoon talking in southern Black dialect. Born around 1910 in Alabama, Onnie Lee Logan was in her 70s when she reluctantly slowed her lifework as a midwife. In this remarkable, electric oral history of a woman, a time, and a place, she passes on stories of the women whose babies she "caught," folk remedies for female troubles, and the faith and "Motherwit" she drew on as babies made their way toward the world.   "Despite an impeccable record as a non-technological and non-professional granny midwife (Onnie's regular income came from working as a housekeeper), in 1984 Onnie was stripped of her vocation and barred from performing a service as old as the human race, after traditional midwifery was outlawed in Alabama.  This occurred amid an American backdrop of professional competition in the increasingly lucrative medical birth business enterprises of obstetricians and medical midwives, and the marketing and legislating of technologically-driven views of the normal birth process in healthy women."   - Mary Ceallaigh Quotes from Onnie Lee: "I do whatever is suitable for that minute or that hour or that situation.  I do it... I do it.  Whether I've seen it in a book or read it or not, I do it.  And it works.  Alot of mothers says, "I didn't do that with my other baby."  I say, "That was that baby, honey.  This is this one.  They are all different... Honey, everything, it changes.  And you got to have knowledge and wisdom which come from God on high, enough to change with it.  When it says 'do this,' you do that,  and don't think about what you done last time... I've seen so many, and there are so many different ways a baby can come into the world until I'll be lookin' for a different every time.  This is the beautiful part about it." "Now, this is the way I did it.  There was a beautiful setup with mother and daddy when their baby was conceived.  They enjoyed it.  When she get into labor - another beautiful setup.  I think the husband and wife should be by themselves during the first stage of labor.  That mother and daddy is together quietly by themselves at her beginnin' of labor until labor get so severe... Even though some of 'em get kinda skittish and want me to come right on in.  I tells 'em this:  "It was you and yo' husband in the beginnin' and it was fine.  It's you and yo' husband should be in the beginnin'  of the birth of the baby, quiet and easy, talkin' and lovin' and happy with one another.   You don't need nobody there.  Me nor nobody else until a certain length of time." "...I look for the first two contractions befo' I move to do anything when I first get there... I see how they're percolatin' along, and then I start to work." "...I tell you one thing that's very impo'tant that I do that the doctors don't do and the nurses doesn't do because they doesn't take time to do it.  And that is I'm with my patients at all times with a smile and keepin' her feelin' good with kind words.  The very words that she need to hear comes up and come out.  And that means alot....It's from my heart and they can feel me." "As far as having a laceration, nature's supposed to take care of that and it does along with me knowing what to do so she won't have a laceration, and that's to use my hot towels and my oil.  Be sho' to let her take her time and breathe and not push too hard.  That's where the laceration comes from.   When it gets to the point where she start dilatin' beautiful, then she get to the place that she don't wanna breathe or cain't breathe.  She get that urge to push instead of breathin'.   I tell 'em to stop if they get the urge to push... I don't let 'em do it in  hurry.   Just enough to give 'em a lil' relief.  Because you do mo' harm pushin' right now than you do good.  You prolong the labor... That baby's head got to make its own way.  Breathe and let it come down itself.  Contractions will pull it... When you can look and see the head (crowning) you know then that baby is not going to get trapped behind [the bones]... I tell 'em how much to give and how much not to give... When they get that baby's head crowned, then that's when they're supposed to push.  If that shoulder is a lil' wider than the head, they got another stage there that they gt to put a lil' pressure on.  And when they get that shoulder through, then the body will just slide on out." "In the last stages of labor when the baby is fixin' to crown, that's when really, they get really irritable.  They don't want to be bothered and they easily gets furious.  Just like I had one girl, I says, "Well, honey, you're doin' fine."  "Mrs. Logan, you don't know what you're talkin' about.  You ain't never had no babies!"  - Well that wasn't her.  That was the stage she was in at the time, see.  When they get in that last stage of labor just most anything they say would come up.  And all at the same time the baby was crownin', it was comin' out!  I stay cool and calm... I know better and I just keep my calm.  Smile and say something' to 'em .  Finally they get right along with you." "When they get in that last stage of labor they sometime get to cryin' and start to say what they cain't do.  "I just cain't - I done tried.  I done all I could.   There ain't n mo' I can do."  That is the worst feelin' for the mother at that stage of labor.  Mostly those contractions is the worst.  I just tell 'em to leave the rest to God.  "All I want you to do is be calm and easy."  Plenty time I say, "All you got to do is hush yo' mouth and you'll see it ain't worth the vibration you're makin', you'll be through.  They done had all the contractions it takes to bring that baby down comin' through the birth canal.   All they have to do is be a lil' patient.  Just a lil' patient.   You  see who gonna handle the rest of it.  I say, "Now right here is where God come in.   You say you done all you could.  You done beared as much as you could.   Leave the rest to God.  God'll do it."