When midwife Lorri Walker attends a home birth, she packs the trunk of her Lexus with the modern tools of an old-fashioned trade: oxygen tanks, IVs and emergency resuscitative equipment.
Walker is an Irvine-based certified nurse midwife, a model based on the British system portrayed in the hit PBS show "Call the Midwife," which chronicles young midwives who carry medical bags of basic equipment on their bicycles.
On TV
The second season of "Call the Midwife"
When: 8 p.m.
March 31
Channel: PBS SoCal
Extras: A first-season, six-episode marathon starts that day at 1 p.m.
Although the transportation and tools have changed, Orange County midwives say the show captures the unchanging compassion of midwives and has sparked conversations about what they do. The series has been lauded for its authentic portrayal of birth and living conditions in post-World War II London.
The first season attracted 3 million American viewers. The second season premieres March 31.
"I could sense the realness of how it was portrayed vs. typical birth scenarios in the media," Walker said. "There was a woman having a baby on a bed. She wasn't up in stirrups. She didn't have sterile drapes on like in the hospital."
The BBC production is based on the best-selling memoirs of the late Jennifer Worth. The show follows young Jenny as she copes with the poverty of London's East End in the 1950s. The program touches on topics that were taboo for the time ? such as sexually transmitted disease, teen pregnancy and interracial children. "Call the Midwife" also details the beginnings of the National Health Service, which brought universal health care to Britain.
In the U.S., there are 12,695 certified nurse midwives and certified midwives, according to the American College of Nurse-Midwives. Midwives delivered 7.2 percent of births in 2010, with 96 percent of them taking place in hospitals and only 2 percent at home.
Walker said she has appreciated the contrast of the show's birthing scenes to the overdramatization typically shown on TV and film. On the show, the young midwives gain confidence as they apply their training to actual cases, including breech and premature births.
Walker vividly recalls her first baby catch.
"I remember pulling the baby up and I remember looking at my trembling hands," she said. "I just thought, 'My God, my hands are the first to touch that baby.' My heart just exploded. It's almost like a spiritual experience for me. You're on a high for days."
Walker, who has been a midwife for 27 years, recently opened a new Irvine birthing center for South Coast Midwifery that resembles a swanky hotel more than a medical office. Chandeliers hang above luxurious bath tubs for birthing. Exams take place on beds piled with decorative pillows. A fireplace glows softly in one room.
"I think even people who know about it think it's got to be really hippie or maybe it will be more like a cabin with the patchwork quilts and a rocking chair on the porch," Walker said. "My passion is about empowering women to feel proud of what they've done."
Candice Crosby, one of Walker's birthing assistants, plans to deliver her first baby at home in Costa Mesa in June. She became a fan of the show after hearing about it from her mother.
"I loved how they showed the old-fashioned ways of labor," said Crosby, 29. "We do a couple of the same things, like the warm compresses and being there to give them love."
Connie Swentek, a certified nurse midwife at Kaiser Permanente's Irvine hospital, found the first season so enthralling that she bought a companion book to the series. She has also read part of Worth's memoir.
"I don't miss an episode," Swentek said. "I just love the show. They do such an excellent job with showing midwives in that era and area of London. It's such a unique environment and there are stories to be told."
Swentek likes how the show portrays midwifery as a calling, similar to what she experienced after giving birth to her two children. She left a career in teaching and became a midwife 24 years ago.
She, too, appreciates the realism of the deliveries, which feature newborns less than 10 days old so their skin is still wrinkly.
"Some people may find that even a little sensitive if you're not familiar with birth," Swentek said. "It sometimes brings me to tears because it is so realistic."
Contact the writer: cperkes@ocregister.com 714-796-3686
Source: http://www.ocregister.com/articles/midwives-500629-walker-midwife.html
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