[4] Although prominent obstetrician Joseph Bolivar DeLee disapproved of women doctors, Tucker wanted to study with him, starting a residency in his obstetrics program while he was out of town so he could not turn her down.

[3] By the end of her residency, she had impressed him so much that he asked her to head his obstetric clinic in a poor immigrant neighborhood, Chicago's Near West Side.

[4] She and co-director Harry B. Benaron created procedures that led to a lower mortality rate than many hospitals, including providing prenatal health consultations, a policy of non-intervention with the natural birth process, and rigorous self-investigation when something went wrong.

[1][4] The center was a combination of a clinic and school of obstetrics where medical students, residents and nurses could learn about delivering babies during a home birth, avoiding the impersonal, sometimes cruel environment of hospital maternity wards.

[4] According to history professor Carolyn Herbst Lewis, "By 1938, under the direction of the obstetrician Beatrice Tucker, DeLee's hand-picked and personally trained successor, the CMC was the largest outpatient obstetrical clinic in the country, garnering national and international acclaim.

[4] The feature-length film The Chicago Maternity Center Story documents the meetings and demonstrations held to save the organization.

[4] Tucker decried the loss of home birth as an option for mothers, blaming "a displacement of patient safety and comfort by other concerns, including physician convenience, institutional prestige and profit, conformity with regulatory and licensing bodies, and issues surrounding insurance and liability.