Welcome to this week’s Reading Roundup! I do hope that you have all enjoyed your reading recently and have discovered loads of great books, whatever your taste may be. Over the last week I have not been feeling very well and my concentration has been poor, so, unfortunately, I have only finished one book. Mind you, I did find it absorbing and interesting.

Here it is…

The book was The Secret Midwife by Katy Weitz (ghostwriter). Basically, it covers the career and some of the personal life of a midwife during her long career. This is the blurb:

“Strongest supporter, best friend, expert, cheerleader and chief photographer . . . Before, during and after labour the role of a midwife is second to none. The Secret Midwife reveals the highs and lows on the frontline of the maternity unit, from the mother who tries to give herself a DIY caesarean to the baby born into witness protection, and from surprise infants that arrive down toilets to ones that turn up in the lift.

But there is a problem; the system which is supposed to support the midwives and the women they care for is starting to crumble. Short-staffed, over worked and underappreciated – these crippling conditions are taking their toll on the dedicated staff doing their utmost to uphold our National Health Service, and the consequences are very serious indeed.”

It is well worth reading if you are interested in issues such as the pressures on the National Health Service, the experiences of women on both sides of the “story”, the effects on staff and patients of cuts to budgets, etc. Anyway, this was my response on Goodreads:

The Secret Midwife: Life, Death and the Truth about Birth by Katy Weitz
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a very interesting, absorbing and also heartbreaking read. I had my two babies back in the 1990s. A long time ago, but I can still clearly remember the highs and lows of both occasions. The midwives were so central to the experience. I was lucky enough to have a fantastic one for the second birth and she was utterly brilliant and made the whole event (through the entire pregnancy, the birth and the home visits afterwards) so much better than the first birth had been.

But enough about me! This book brought me to tears in places with the wonderful births on the one hand and the awful and sad situations on the other. To see such a great NHS service and dedicated staff so battered by political decisions and dreadful management practices is heartbreaking and also depressing. I felt so angry by the end of the book that we, as a nation, allow our politicians to treat people so poorly.

I only hope that we can still turn it all around. I clapped for NHS workers during lockdown, I applaud them again!

View all my reviews

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The book was definitely worth four stars. After this one, I returned to a series I have been reading. My current book is long and the plot quite complicated with numerous characters, which is why I haven’t finished it in time for this post. Also, I am planning to go straight on to the next book in the series before I forget the plot so far (my memory issues are not improving, sadly).

Back next week for the Reading Roundup. Until then, Happy Reading to you all!

Love and best wishes,

Anne

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