Margaret Stephen (midwife)

Summary

Margaret Stephen was a British midwife, midwifery teacher and author, active in London in the late 18th century, who published Domestic Midwife (1795), one of a handful of textbooks on midwifery from that era that is by a woman. She was trained by a male student of the famous male midwife, William Smellie, and practised for more than thirty years. She may have attended some of Queen Charlotte's births. Her own pupils were all women, and she is the only female midwife recorded to have used an obstetrical machine in her instruction.