October 2, 2008

Midwife = “with woman”
Carol Leonard delivers a book about her profession
By Jeff Mucciarone jmucciarone@hippopress.com

Carol Leonard served New Hampshire as its first and perhaps most prominent midwife. Having practiced for three decades, the 58-year-old Hopkinton resident isn’t delivering babies now; she is taking time out to write and to build a 400-acre farm in Maine. The mother of two adult children, she is co-founder of the Midwives Alliance of North America. She spent time in Moscow in the early 1990s helping Russians with their delivery practices. In July she self-published Lady’s Hands, Lion’s Heart: A Midwife’s Saga, which details her adventures as a midwife and delves into the origins of the midwife profession. To learn more about Leonard, go to www.badbeaverfarm.com.

Q:How did you become a midwife?
I went to New England Col-lege. I was a biology major. I hadn’t planned to be a midwife. The book starts with the birth of my son. It was a time when they actually strapped your hands down. It was the beginning of the natural childbirth movement. I had this anger. Dr. Francis Brown took me on as his sidekick. There weren’t any other midwives in New Hampshire that I knew of. I didn’t really know I was one my whole first year. The women themselves actually created the profession. [At the time, Brown was the only doctor in New Hampshire delivering babies at peoples’ homes, she said.]

How did you make the segue into writing?
I finished my book 10 years ago and I let it marinate for 10 years. Some things happened this winter that signaled to me to go ahead with it. I’m very pleased with the way it turned out. The book I think now is very tight.

How is interest in the book so far?
It’s only been two months, but it seems like it’s pretty good. For some reason, it’s selling like crazy in British Columbia. I’m going to Traverse City, Mich., next month, so it’s not just New Hampshire. I originally thought it would be just a niche for midwives. But I think it’s turning out to be a pretty universal book.

A publishing company referred to you as the “foremother of the modern midwifery movement.” Did you think of yourself in that light? Did you realize you were part of something big when you started out?
Yeah, I guess so. I guess I had a sense that it was. I really firmly believed in what I was doing. It was just something in the core of my being.

What drew you to the profession?
It was the women themselves. A lot of the births, they were going to stay home whether I went there or not. I was good at it. I had an intuitive sense. But I had really good training from Dr. Brown. I’ve delivered a lot of babies, and I’ve never lost one.

How many have you delivered?
Over 1,000. I learned something from every woman. They were the ones who were teaching me.

What’s the difference between a midwife and a doctor when it comes to childbirth?
Midwife means “with woman.” Today, insurance companies dictate how doctors practice. A doctor might spend 5 minutes, 10 minutes max, during prenatal visits. The woman doesn’t get a lot of face time. There’s a lot less interpersonal time. You really don’t get to know who you are going to have. With a midwife, you probably get 45 minutes per visit and you know who you are going to get. There’s just a lot more of an interpersonal dynamic.

What’s the process?
Early in the pregnancy, most have already decided they want an out-of-hospital birth. They are pretty much a separate breed of cat. They’re well-read, well-educated, they really know what they want. They’re bossy. They’ll say, “I want my experience to be like this.” I would see them once a month for the first six months, once every two weeks for months seven and eight, and once a week for the ninth month. ... You got to know the woman really pretty well. [In her time practicing, Leonard said, she only had to transfer about 8 percent of her patients out to the hospital. She said she didn’t do breaches or twins and only took on low-risk pregnancies.]

You’re from Maine?
I was born in Bangor. I’m actually a Mainiac. And I’m actually going back to my roots.

Where did the title “Lady’s Hands, Lion’s Heart” come from?
It’s a quote by Aristotle — “A midwife should have a lady’s hands, a hawk’s eyes and a lion’s heart.” I really loved that quote. My last name means lion heart. I thought it was a great description so I claimed it for my book.

What characteristics made you successful as a midwife?
I think I was able to kind of key into the woman. Everybody liked me. I could be direct when I needed to be, but, I don’t know, people just liked me. I did listen to my instincts a lot, combined with the medical needs. I always kind of knew when something bad was going to happen, and I was always one step ahead of the bad. I paid attention to the spiritual aspect of it. I was a little bit in awe of it. I never got cocky. I sort of listened to the spiritual nature of it.

—Jeff Mucciarone