Mary Carson Breckinridge

Mary Carson Breckinridge was an American nurse midwife and the founder of the Frontier Nursing Service (FNS), which provided comprehensive family medical care to the mountain people of rural Kentucky. FNS served remote and impoverished areas off the road and rail system but accessible by horseback. She modeled her services on European practices and sought to professionalize American nurse-midwives to practice autonomously in homes and decentralized clinics. Although Breckinridge's work demonstrated efficacy by dramatically reducing infant and maternal mortality in Appalachia, at a comparatively low cost, her model of nurse-midwifery never took root in the United States.

17 February 1881

Born on the same birth day (17 February): Alexander Obolensky • Anders Jacobsen (ski jumper) • Benjamin Fain • Conrad Ricamora • Drew Barry • Hal Holbrook • J. M. S. Careless • Karin Büttner-Janz • Larry the Cable Guy • Miki Berkovich • Nicolas Baudin • Otto Stern • Phil Pressey • Philipp Franz von Siebold • Raf Vallone • Sebastian Aho (ice hockey, born 1996) • Vasily Kudinov • Vicente Fernández

Born in the same month (February 1881): Alexei Rykov • Anna Pavlova • Carlo Carrà • Eulalio Gutiérrez • Janus Djurhuus • Joseph B. Ely • Kenneth J. Alford • L. E. J. Brouwer • Orval Overall • Sveinn Björnsson • Tip Snooke