Amazon Description:
When a woman is denied all choice - feels as if she has
been swallowed up by a vast machine and spat out at the other end
with a baby - how can she come to terms with that ordeal? Birth
Crisis draws on mothers' voices and real-life experiences to
explore the suffering after childbirth which has, until now, been
brushed under the carpet. It is a fascinating and useful resource
for student and practicing midwives, all health professionals, and
women and their families who want to learn how to overcome a
traumatic birth.
Editorial Review:
"Block shows how, in transforming
childbirth into a business, hospitals have turned "procedures and
devices developed for the treatment of abnormality" into routine
practice, performed for no reason than "speeding up and ordering an
unpredictable...process." Block looks into
a growing contingent of parents-to-be exploring alternatives to the
hospital-and the attendant likelihood of medical intervention-by
seeking out birthing centers and options for home-birth.
Unfortunately, obstacles to these alternatives remain
considerable-laws across the U.S. criminalizing or severely
restricting the practice of midwifery have led the trained care
providers to practice underground in many states-while tort reform
has done next to nothing to lower malpractice insurance rates or
improve hospital birthing policies. This provocative, highly
readable expose raises questions of great consequence for anyone
planning to have a baby in U.S., as well as those interested or
involved in women's health care." --Publishers
Weekly
Editorial Review: "Anyone
who has taken an antenatal education class in the last decade can
detail much of what Boston Globe reporter Cassidy documents
about birthing battles in her enjoyable new book. What she so
cogently adds is a history of Western practices and attitudes
surrounding birth, from the "God-sibs" (or "gossips") who sat by a
woman's bed in Europe and early America to the scheduled caesarean of
today. The book is well written and will be an important eye-opener
to many. Cassidy works hard to remain neutral, but a preference for
the discourse of "natural" birth creeps in." --Publishers
Weekly
Amazon Description:
In this rare, behind-the-scenes look at what goes on in
hospitals across the country, a longtime medical insider and
international authority on childbirth assesses the flawed American
maternity care system, powerfully demonstrating how it fails to
deliver safe, effective care for both mothers and babies. Written
for mothers and fathers, obstetricians, nurses, midwives,
scientists, insurance professionals, and anyone contemplating having
a child, this passionate exposé documents how, in the most expensive
maternity care system in the world, women have lost control over
childbirth and what the disturbing results of this phenomenon have
been.
Review:
There is no Amazon description for this book.
One customer review said "This book was hard to put down and
would have been read in one sitting if I had the time This book
tells of the hardships that lay-midwife Judy Lee went through and
mastered. As an aspiring midwife, I hope to have the strength and
courage that Judy did to stand up for midwifery,
and to not simply succumb to "powerful"
dictating doctors who think technical birth is better than the way
nature intended. This book is a must read
for any one in the medical field as well
as patients. My only disappointment is
that the book ended before I wanted it too."
Amazon Description:
Jones stresses the importance of a mellow labour
environment and subtly promotes the idea of delivery at home or in a
childbearing center, but he fails to spell out the risks of a
nonhospital delivery. His goal of a well-informed, positive-thinking
pregnant couple is admirable, but his insistence that attitude can
overcome virtually any problem is questionable.
Amazon Description:
Davis-Floyd has written a brilliant feminist analysis of
childbirth rites of passage in American culture. These rites, she
argues, take away women's power over their bodies, naturally
designed to bring life into the world, and for no physiological
reason give it to the medical system. She believes that society,
intimidated by women's ability to give birth, has designed
obstetrical rituals that are far more complex than natural
childbirth itself in order to deliver what is from nature into
culture. "In this way," she writes, "society symbolically
demonstrates ownership of its product." This beautiful book, full of
insightful interviews with women on a range of birth experiences and
with an extensive bibliography, is a wonderful addition to the
growing literature on the anthropology of the body and the
theoretical debates over mind/body and nature/culture dichotomies.
Essential for all anthropology and women's studies collections and
medical school libraries and highly recommended for public
libraries.
Amazon Description:
The Politics of Birth explores ways in which we learn
about birth, how we talk and feel about it, assumptions that
professional caregivers may make, and the roles and skills of
midwives. Topics include home birth and water birth; the use of
drugs in childbirth; obstetric and nursing interventions which are
often used routinely; Caesarean sections; pressures that care-givers
are under, and the choices presented to women that are more apparent
than real. Throughout, the author draws on research-based evidence
to present both an holistic yet grounded examination of topical
issues surrounding pregnancy and childbirth. This is not a "how to"
book. The aim of The Politics of Birth is to help the reader develop
deeper insight and understanding of how a technocratic birth culture
shapes our ideas about birth and obstetric practice.
"Thank you for such a wonderful experience! I learned so much. I've enjoyed this so much that I'm thinking about becoming an Antenatal Teacher and if I do, I'm definitely going through you." - Jami, Washington
