Rating: 
Summary: Different view of birth experience
Review: I love reading about other women's birth experiences, and the view from the midwife was both informative and emotional. While I would never attempt a home birth due to known cardiac issues with my children, it made me wish that I could have had the experience. A balanced view of the home birth experience, without condemning those of us who have to opt for the hospital birth.
Rating: 
Summary: Humorous, suspenseful, heartwarming
Review: I've never cared for childbirth stories and have never been pregnant. But I knew what a good writer Peggy is, so I bought her book. After reading it, I feel like becoming a crusader for letting expectant parents choose their childbirth method and for insurance plans to encourage midwifery. I sympathized with Peggy when she got sued, and I felt the injustice that is so common in our litigation-happy society. This is much more than a "pregnant women" book. Besides being a human-interest story, it offers the suspense of a lawsuit and an education in medical care and insurance practices. I highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Birth Stories & Adventures of an American Midwife
Review: I loved this book! I laughed and cried and had a great time reading it. Baby Catcher celebrates the joy of women giving birth. Most of births in the book have a happy ending with healthy mom and baby, but Baby Catcher also includes a few stories of grief and loss. The chapter, Spirit Baby, provided me comfort after my pregnancy losses. Each chapter stands on it's own so if you are like me and find it hard to make time for pleasure reading you can read the chapters alone as short stories. Of course you probably won't be able to put it down and you'll read the whole thing at once anyway!
Rating:
Summary: a celebration of birth and women's power
Review: I received this book as a gift just before the birth of my daughter, but I was afraid to even open it until after my baby arrived. I'm glad I waited until I had had the experience myself. Peggy's retelling of the births she attended and her struggles on the cusp of "accepted" medical practice are fascinating. Add to that her elegant but straight-forward writing style and you've got a fabulous book. I have a new-found respect for midwifery and a new perspective on the choices available to women for taking control of the birthing process. What a joy to read!
Rating:
Summary: Best Book I've Ever Read!
Review: I can honestly say Baby Catcher is the best book I have ever read. I cried through chapters, laughed, and had moments when I closed the book to just think. I identified with the women givign birth and with Peggy Vincent as the midwife, catching those babies! I loved hearing about her life as a wife and mother, and how being a midwife impacted those roles. I did not want this book to end. I want everyone I know to read this book because it has impacted me so much and I want them to be a part of that!
Whether birth is your passion or you would just like to know a bit more about it, this book is a great read! I recommend it to everyone! It is also a great gift idea for expecting parents.
Rating:
Summary: A touching and enjoyable book...I loved it!
Review: My husband and I both read this book, and we both loved it. Such a wonderful example of what birth can and should be in our culture today. This book inspired us to have our third child at home and it was such a tremendously positive experience. Peggy Vincent is an excellent writer with many fascinating stories to share!
Rating:
Summary: Breathtaking & Enlightening!
Review: Peggy Vincent has let us in on a little secret that only the chosen few know. Miracles happen everyday. I am so much more enlightened, because of her book. She has let me know that we as women, wives, and mothers have a choice. We have a right to have things our way. To have the most special birth possible for our babies. She has let us into her special, special world. I cried my eyes out while reading her book. Through the happiness and sorrow of her clients. I felt like I was right next to her through every birth. She draws you in to experience each and every miracle along with her. Thank you Peggy Vincent. You are a very extrodinary lady. I am a better person for reading your book. My only wish is that every woman, pregnant or not, be able to read your book! Thank you for a brighter outlook on life. God bless!
Rating:
Summary: Powerful, wonderful, empowering, and TRUE!
Review: This is a wonderful book. I had an unmedicated hospital birth with midwives when I delivered my daughter and it was a wonderful, life-changing, affirming experience. Reading this book reminded me of the immense power of the birth and of the female mind, body and spirit. It made me hope that those of us who believe that there is an alternative to the numbness, loss of control, and intervention of a traditional hospital birth. Peggy is an inspiration to all!
Rating:
Summary: Riveting! I loved every word of it.
Review: This book is so wonderful, I don't know where to begin. The stories are so amazing - it truly shows that "life is better than fiction". Peggy is very gifted at storytelling and she knows how to frame the story with heart-warming observations and just the right amount of humor and colloquialisms. I cried and cried - for both happy outcomes and sad ones. I told my sister one whole story over the phone and we were both crying! It just gets you because it involves the miracle of birth - birth is AWESOME and the stories involving it are intense and fascinating. I had two babies at home and I wish more than 5% of us (in the U.S.) were doing it! Pass this book around, I know I will. Peggy says she'll write another one, which is great! When I was half-way through the book, I was so floored by the unique-ness of the stories thus far, I couldn't believe there were so many more unique stories to tell. But apparently, she could fill more books with other stories! Bring em on, Peggy! Thanks for your wonderful memoir!
Rating:
Summary: Honest and engaging
Review: Although I am a strong advocate of midwife assisted home birth, I probably wouldn't have bought this book myself. That would have been my loss. My wife had borrowed it from our midwife, and I had run out of things to read, so I decided it would be a good way to pass the time. Mrs. Vincent's story is not only the story of herself, but it is the story of midwifery in the late 20th century in general. The early portion of the story, chronicling her time as a nursing student in the early 60s when natural childbirth was not at all accepted, serves as a pretty good summation of the things that my wife hated about our first daughter's hospital birth, and the reason we chose to have our second at home. In short, the ideological conflict between midwifery and hospital birth is this: Mrs. Vincent and those like her believe each labour should be treated as normal unless some serious complication presents itself. Obstetricians see labour as an inherently dangerous medical condition requiring their intervention. We follow the author through her career as she becomes a certified nurse midwife, gets privileges at a prestigious Bay Area hospital, and develops relationships with patients and doctors along the way. This also gives us a fascinating and humorous glimpse at the way American culture has changed over the last 40 years. For whatever reason, home birth seems to attract a greater percentage of unusual people than one might find in a random sample of the population. They're all here: people who have pets at their birth, recovering drug addicts, hippies making the transition to suburban yuppie life, families with complicated emotional dynamics. The stories of individual births are great, and many are very uplifting, but the book as a whole is something of a downer. This is due to the time of its writing. In the early 90s, after many years of phenomenal gains, home birth had a dark period as the ability of midwives to secure malpractice insurance was severely constrained. Mrs. Vincent's own story provides a particularly tragic example of this. Thankfully, the situation has improved - a point she makes in a brief epilogue. The book also has a few helpful appendices indicating what supplies one ought to have at a homebirth, cost studies of midwife assisted vs. physician assisted birth and so on.
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