Author: Leigh Fransen

When I started this blog, I figured I’d get a lot of hate mail. It turns out, the opposite happened. Oh sure, I’ve gotten a few nastygrams, but a lot fewer than I was expecting. Meanwhile, I’ve received many messages

In midwifery school, it was always exciting when a student midwife would get her “first catch.” I was there when one of my classmates got hers. After a sluggish labor, the baby came out suddenly and quickly, and the student

In a warm classroom on a hot Miami night, I sat listening to the head midwife lecture about the evils of malpractice insurance. She said that having malpractice insurance was “like painting a big red bullseye on yourself.” She impersonated

I remember the first time I ever heard of someone eating her baby’s placenta after birth. I was in Northern Minnesota, I was 18 years old, and I was horrified. I could not believe my ears. I never would have

The Hurdle to Overcome   When a person does something that is inconsistent with some important aspect of her self-concept, the dissonance is especially painful. Mothers tend to be very invested in themselves as loving and nurturing toward their children;

Me, Accountable?   The peer review process after a midwife presides over a complicated birth is a disturbing procedure. Midwives rarely ask hard questions, such as whether this mother truly was a low-risk candidate, whether or not the midwife was