Nursing Stories: Mary Breckinridge

In this series, we will tell nursing stories of influential practitioners who made a difference in the field of nursing.

Mary Breckinridge was perhaps one of the most educated nurses of her time but lived a life of terrible tragedy. After the death of her first husband in 1906 and the deaths of her children in 1916 and 1918, she renounced marriage and motherhood and dedicated her life in its entirety to the health of women and children in rural America. She is credited with introducing nurse-midwifery to the United States and using the model to reduce the highest maternal mortality rates in the nation to well below average.

Breckinridge came from an aristocratic family. Her grandfather was first a vice president and then a notorious Confederate supporter. He was convicted of treason and exiled just as his cousin, Mary Todd Lincoln, was burying her husband. The Breckinridge family stayed firmly rooted in politics, with Mary’s father serving as the American ambassador to Russia’s last Czar. Her childhood was spent traversing from the U.S. to Russia and back, studying with the top tutors in the world. As a young woman, she married her first husband, who tragically died two years later.

The heartbreak turned Breckinridge toward a career in nursing. After finishing her degree in New York, she served with the war efforts in Europe. While serving in the war, she was introduced to nurse-midwifery, which planted the seeds for the services she would establish in Kentucky’s struggling Appalachians.

Breckinridge would marry again in 1910 and give birth to a boy and a girl. Her daughter died just six hours after delivery, and her son passed away at age four. In grief, she filed for divorce, renounced the joys of partnership and motherhood and dedicated her life to the protection and care of other Kentucky mothers and their children.

The winding roads of the Appalachians weren’t conducive to most visiting doctors, and families often couldn’t afford adequate light or heat. Breckinridge’s previous role servicing remote, rural populations during her time in Europe served her well in dealing with communities in the Appalachian area, which had the highest mortality rates of anywhere in the United States. She soon discovered that what she learned in Europe could be applied in the United States.

Armed with a team of nurses on horseback, Breckinridge founded the Frontier Nursing Service (FNS) in 1925. Using her social and political contacts, she was able to raise more than $6 million for the program. Through FNS, nurse-midwives trained in New York and came back to Kentucky to serve women throughout their pregnancies. Using the latest advancements in nurse-midwifery, they were able to lower the maternal mortality rates in their area to below the national average.

Knowledge gleaned from the FNS was used across the United States to help women and children without easy access to affordable health care. By applying best practices from the FNS, everything from the billing and bartering system to health care techniques were evaluated and improved, which revitalized women’s health across the nation. Breckinridge was at the helm until 1965, but the FNS remains a strong community resource today for an area that still struggles to meet the needs of families living in poverty.

Mary Breckinridge looked beyond the methods of her day because they weren’t meeting her patients’ needs. This commitment to care made her vision a reality and helped improve the lives of women throughout the United States. At Simmons School of Nursing and Health Sciences, a similar vision is shared. Going beyond traditional methods, the Nursing@Simmons program allows licensed registered nurses to complete the school’s reputable Master of Science in Nursing program online to become Family Nurse Practitioners who can care for communities in need.