Local midwife, author holds book launch

From staff reports

Maple City-resident Geradine Simkins, president of the Midwives Alliance of North America (MANA), and author of a new book Into These Hands: Wisdom From Midwives (Spirituality & Health Books, 2011) was featured recently in the Grand Traverse Insider. She will officially launch the book tomorrow, May 13, with a reading at Brilliant Books in Suttons Bay. (Look for a feature on Simkins in the May 26 edition of the Glen Arbor Sun.)

Here’s an excerpt from the Insider‘s story:

Geradine Simkins, CNM, MSN was 26 years old and in the fourth month of her first pregnancy when she attended her first home birth in 1976.

“It was the first time I really heard the terms ‘home birth’ and ‘midwife,’” she said. “It was a moment of epiphany for me, one of those uncommon times when something cracks open and you realize that there is an alternative to what you always thought was ‘normal.’”

Today, the Leelanau County resident is and the organization’s interim executive director; she is also the author (or co-author) and editor of several books, a midwife with more than 30 years of practice in the Grand Traverse region, and the owner of Birthways Consulting.

Her new book is a comprehensive anthology of the life stories, struggles, and triumphs of 25 women who have dedicated their lives to social change and the practice of midwifery, and who have made significant contributions to shaping maternity health care in this country. Their wisdom is the result of a cumulative 800 years of working with mothers, newborns, and families while assisting in over 35,000 births.