This is an excellent book. The author writes about some horrific events. This is such a powerful book and so important. It highlights the lack of maternity care in so many countries

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for my copy of this e-arc

I think people forget how vital healthcare staff are and especially midwife’s because half of the population will never use one but they help bring life into this world and they are faced with gruelling tasks and tribulations in their job.

I really enjoyed this recount of her life in her medical field

Frontline Midwife by Anna Kent, a NetGalley review. I have so much to say about this book, let’s start by saying it’s an amazing book and a must read. The author nots a trigger warning at the very beginning for example it covers baby loss and gender based violence. Right from the beginning this book is is raw and honest, this author doesn’t hold back and although extremely tough to read in places (I found it hard to read regarding miscarriages and stillborn babies so again please be warned), I also believe in many ways this was the draw of the book, a weird refreshing read where someone is honest about woman’s health, regardless of where that topic is based (hope that makes sense). Anna is an amazing and selfless woman but she is far from perfect and she freely admits that, despite having the biggest heart and wanting to work on the frontline and help woman, it’s brutal and it effects her mental health, which again she freely talks about. Anna is brave, determined, strong, caring and loving, helping these woman in dire conditions and situations, woman that are at times worthless to there partners, some whom have been raped and have to marry that rapist because it’s seen as a sin to be pregnant when your not married, many men having more than one wife, I could go on. Anna is also only human and at times she’s scared, terrified even, on her first frontline mission even somewhat naive. However she is also running away from things that happened in the past, trying to fix what she couldn’t then. Anna is a very articulate author of that makes sense, her words are visually effective, like watching a film and at times it felt like reading a work of fiction because the things she was describing couldn’t possible true. I felt my facial expressions change as I read on, eyes wide with shock, I think I experienced every emotion reading this book so have the tissues ready. We live in s world where great change is being made but reading this it makes those changes feel so tiny and small. At times, especially after her fist mission, why she continues to go on these missions, they are having a huge effect on her mental health, yet she goes back again and again. In this book you think you’ve read the worst and then it get worst, a lot worse. Something that was so hard for me to comprehend and to get my head round. Anna has to carry out a procedure, that she says is only to be done in the most dire of circumstances and which she has never done before, reading it was horrific, it made me feel sick, it brought me close to tears and something just as a reader was hard to get your head around. I read this part just before bed, it’s not a bed time read and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I had to close the book and walk away, how must Anna had felt having to carry out such a procedure. It’s shocking. This part in the book will break your heart a little and if you have children, you will hold them a little closer, but again be warned it’s a trigger point. I’m in awe of Anna, you have to be a strong person to do and see what she has. This is a book I will never forget reading and probably the best non fiction book this year. It’s one I will recommend carefully to friends and family but I’m so incredibly glad I got to read it. It goes without saying this book is ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Wow, what a book, such an incredible story.

Thank you NetGalley for my complimentary copy in return for my honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley for this copy. This is a really good book, kept me entertained throughout and I would thoroughly recommend to all.

Heartwrenching and such an emotional, yet important read. I'll be honest, I had to skip parts of this because they were just too heartbreaking or too much for my poor little soul to take. BUT what a book, what an important book to realise that 'normal' life continues in these war torn areas and someone is there deliveries babies and looking after vulnerable women. I feel like if you're a woman that has had a baby (like me) this one will stay with you, but you will never forget how amazing this woman must be!

Beautiful. Poignant. Phenomenal.
This was a beautiful read and I learnt so much. I cried and I smiled and there was nothing more that I wanted from this book. Truly a gem.

You know how sometimes you come across a book you tell everyone at work about? This was one of those books for me. It's a heartbreaking, gruelling, devastating read. At first I didn't like the author at all because quite frankly she came across as a complete nightmare, but as she grew I saw her grit and determination and dedication to her work. If the world had more people like her things would be much better for everyone. A remarkable woman and an amazing testament to a selfless career helping vulnerable women around the world.

As a neonatal intensive care nurse, this resonated well with me and it was a very enjoyable read. This is a first for me by the author and one I enjoyed and would read more of their work. The book cover is eye-catching and appealing and would spark my interest if in a bookshop. Thank you very much to the author, publisher and Netgalley for this ARC.

I watched Anna give an interview on Dr Hope's Youtube channel and immediately requested a copy. While the prose isn't anything special, it's clear and readable and Anna does a great job getting across the horrors she has witnessed both in the UK and overseas.

I'd give content warnings for just about everything in here, but if you're feeling up to it, this is such a worthwhile read to draw attention to the plights of women in South Sudan and Bangladesh. Anna also gives an account of her own heart-breaking experience with her pregnancies here which I could barely read without crying.

Highly recommended.

The cover of this book is quite simplistic, yet draws your eye to it. It is also good to put a “face to a name” as the image on the cover is of the author. I felt the need to read something “different” and when I saw this book and read the blurb, I felt I had to read it.

I’ll be totally honest when I first saw the book cover and book, I automatically assumed that it was going to be about a midwife working through covid! Then I read the blurb, realised it was something totally different but ended up wanting to read even more.

Anna Kent perhaps rather naively at the time signed up to work as an aid worker for MSF. Anna’s first posting is to the South Sudan, and though she feels that she is prepared for what she is going to see and have to deal with she soon realises she isn’t. Once she arrives at the area she will work, she is certainly shocked by the conditions she will have to work in, as well as those she is going to be working with. A quite matter of fact comment from the other aid worker, James, when he informs Anna, she will be solely dealing with the midwifery aspects of their job. This is sort of what sets Anna onto eventually becoming a midwife. At first Anna admits she doesn’t really like James, but after working with him, they become firm friends for life. Anna has a lot to cope with from the different culture, religions of those she is treating, their customs, superstitions, as well as the medical conditions and lack of medical supplies too. Used to having access to high tech equipment, Anna has to learn to use the more “old-fashioned” equipment that is available. I think Anna found her situations equally interesting, adventurous and horrifying too! Anna goes from being confident in what she has to do, to being in a panic she will never cope and wanting to head right back home, to ultimately not wanting to go home. Worrying about those she has helped to train and wondering how those she has treat will fair in the poor conditions they exist in.

When Anna returns to England she trains as a midwife in Nottingham and feels she is more prepared for her next “adventure” working abroad. This time she has aspirations to set up a birth centre, but she will need the co-operation of the traditions birth assistants to even get the women to enter the birth centre, let alone use it. Anna has to put up with being viewed as a “novelty” for want of a better description. When offering training to these women she is told the only reason they are actually turning up is for the food etc on offer whilst they are there. Anna does gain their respect and starts with small victories and does end up improving things for the pregnant women. Anna has highs in her career, for example providing birthing kits for the traditional birthing assistants to use meaning less risk of infections, but with highs there are also lows, some of the procedures she has to do are horrific, its no wonder she has nightmares and suffers PTSD. Another down for Anna is the fact that she, and the other aid workers live in constant fear of being kidnapped, even to the point of carrying cash to pay off potential kidnappers. At one of her jobs despite hating to do so all the aid workers have to leave the facility they work in at a certain time as their safety cannot be guaranteed after that time. Which certainly goes against the grain for Anna having to leave a patient she may be halfway through treating. At the time Anna thinks a lot of the restrictions put on aid workers are strange and even some maybe a tad unnecessary. However, after all the danger Anna sees and works in, it is a surfing accident that almost kills her. It’s only then she can see the other side of some of these rules and restrictions and the sense and reasons behind them.

Being an aid worker doesn’t just change and affect Anna’s work life and career path it also changes her personal relationships and her whole life path. Anna was once settled with a man she thought she would return after her first aid worker posting, whom she thought she would marry and have children with. All this changes, they end up being more like strangers than the partners they were before she went to the South Sudan.

The horrors at work continue for Anna on a daily basis, though she has a network of friends, mostly those she has worked with previously to talk to. She also finds some happiness amongst the daily battles with Leon a French aid worker.

To say I enjoyed reading this book doesn’t feel the right way to describe reading the book. I found it enlightening, and felt I really learnt somethings. It was certainly a glimpse into how less fortunate women are treat when pregnant. I really wanted to reach into the book and hug Anna when she went through the birth/death of her baby. Having has a late miscarriage myself and gone through giving birth to a baby, in my case that I knew would never breath made me really identify with her. It also put how those who lose babies, be they full term or not have been treat in the UK, and the improvements that still need making and put into action. I was glad to read at least Anna had her colleagues to help her through her experience. Anna really goes through a lot herself and share it in this book as well as sharing stories of women she has met, and helped over the years. Anna talks in the book about feeling she let some of the women down but after reading the book, I personally think the tragic events these women went through would have been even worse without Anna.

This book is an amazing read, about Anna, the perhaps more idealistic person she was at the very beginning of her career as an aid worker, how Anna dealt with things in her private life too. Then there’s the career Anna has and the differences she made in procedures and planning of health programs and facilities. This is not only a book about the work Anna has done but a look at how that work impacted her life, relationships and subsequent career.

Summing up this is an emotive memoir about a young woman becoming an aid worker, revealing what it is like for women giving birth in different areas of the world. The beginning of lives. I also found it fascinating that James has gone from being around the beginning of life to now working with those at the end of their lives. I could imagine talking to both Anna and James for hours and hours about their experiences.

Frontline Midwife is such a well-written and important read. As a NHS midwife I had a special interest in reading this one, and Anna's story was completely gripping, horrifying and inspirational in equal measures. This is a must read book. 5 stars.

Wow! Simply breathtaking! This is an incredibly compelling read that will really tug at your heart. I cannot urge you enough to read this!

What a life this incredible woman has lived!

The book tells the story of Anna’s journey as a Nurse Aid Worker in South Sudan and Bangladesh. The frank account of what she experiences is so eye opening.

The whole way through, you feel pride in her for the work she is doing, the difference she has made, the lives she has saved and the legacy she leaves in each place. Although it’s clear she doesn’t feel this way and mainly focuses on the losses and not the wins.

She openly speaks about her feelings and the impact it has on her mental health and relationships.

There a few stories which are difficult to read and at times left me feeling very emotional.

This was absolutely gripping to read. Incredibly eye opening, and humbling. I must confess, I’d never even heard of the Rohingya people and what they have suffered and to read about the camp lead me to feel all sorts of indescribable emotions. Anna wrote humbly, beautifully, clearly, honestly, sensitively… I can’t think of enough adjectives to give credit to her work. Reading about how she was affected by her travels was sad and frustrating that she would have to go through so many challenges in her personal life in spite of (or because of, I guess) being out there doing so much good in the wider world. Absolutely stunning and I have been recommending it to EVERYONE I know.

Such an inspirational insight book…. Anna Kent has delivered babies in war zones, caring for the most vulnerable women in the most vulnerable places in the world. At twenty-six years old, not yet a fully-trained midwife, she delivered a baby in a tropical storm by the light of a headtorch; the following year, she would be responsible for the female health of 30,000 Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. But returning to the UK to work for the NHS, she soon learned that even at home the right to a safe birth was impossible to take for granted.
In Frontline Midwife, Kent shares her extraordinary experiences as a nurse, midwife and mother, illuminating the lives of women that are irreparably affected by compromised access to healthcare. This is at once an astonishing story of the realities of frontline humanitarian work, and a powerful reminder of the critical, life-giving work of nurses and doctors at home and around the world.

Read and reviewed in exchange for a free copy from NetGalley. 'Frontline Midwife' was fantastic. Kent writes sensitively and skillfully about incredibly difficult situations, providing both an educational and emotional insight into South Sudan, Haiti and Bangladesh, in addition to discussing personal challenges she has faced. The book was incredibly moving and was a fascinating insight into the work of MSF.

I loved this brave and honest account of Anna’s life as an aid worker and midwife in war zones with some of the most disadvantaged women in the world.
I always enjoy accounts of frontline medicine but this is a bit different.
It’s very much about Anna’s struggle to bear witness to suffering and to allay her guilt when she cannot save the women birthing under her care.
And it’s also a really rounded account of Anna’s life outside midwifery.
Through this book, I came to really care for Anna and I feel sad to let her go now I’ve finished it!
She is a truly remarkable woman and this is such a compelling and worthwhile read: highly recommended.

A heart-wrenching autobiography of a truly remarkable woman. Tales of midwifery in South Sudan, Bangladesh and Nottingham. An absolute must read for everyone. I’m so incredible grateful to the author, NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an advance copy in return for a honest review. It is honestly one of the most breath-taking books I’ve read.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read this book.
As other reviews have observed this book is really difficult to put down - it had me reading until the early hours and yes it seemed like a conversation between two people over coffee such was the reading style. I loved it. Whilst many of the experiences were unfamiliar and sometimes heart breaking there was a real connection to all concerned.
Thank you Anna for bearing your soul to us mere readers most of whom will never experience that which is between the covers of your splendid book.