Most helpful customer reviews
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5.0 out of 5 stars
fast read...worth it, every page!, Jun 26 2003
This is the personal journey of the author into discovering her path to empowerment through childbirth. She becomes a doula and a homebirth mother along the way. The book offers real insight into the world of midwives and mothers.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
behind-the-scenes look at the practice of midwifery, May 24 2003
If you are part of the 99% of American women who choose to give birth in a hospital, attended by a physician, because you think that is the safest way to go, this book may well change your mind, or at least get you thinking about the possible benefits of a more natural, midwife-attended delivery. The author is decidedly pro-midwife; she weaves numerous statistics and stories into the text that underscore the decline of healthy delivery commensurate with the "medicalization" of delivery. For example, the US has the highest rate of hospital/medical deliveries but ranks 22nd in the world in maternal health / infant mortality -- well behind other countries, primarily western European, where home delivery and birth center deliveries are much more common. Other surprises -- according to the author, the World Health Organization recommends home deliveries and birthing center deliveries over hospital deliveries. The rates of C-sections and episiotomies are much, much lower for midwife-attended deliveries. Midwifes generally treat childbirth as something the female body is fully capable of doing on its own, rather than as a medical condition or disability to be treated. And the midwifes interviewed for the book seem to be very respectful of their clients -- assisting the client in her own birth experience rather than making the birth something the midwife choreographs & directs. The author writes about the history of childbirth & delivery and the practice of midwifery, interviews numerous midwifes, and even participates in home births attended by midwifes. At the same time, she discusses her own pregnancy (that is progressing while she is conducting the research for the book) and she trains to become a doula, or birth assistant. The book is gripping and easy to read; it reads fast like a novel -- and the discussions of home births she has attended are page-turners -- but it is also full of factual information and would serve to help prepare a woman for childbirth. In her interviews with midwifes, she discusses the risks to the profession -- insurance company's reluctance to cover home births and midwife fees, even though they're statisfically safer and less expensive than OB-attended hospital births, midwife's difficulty in getting insurance coverage for their practices, pressure on midwifes working in hospital settings to spend less & less time with their clients and to introduce more medications (Pitocin) -- to conform more to the medical model.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the Best Books Out There!, May 16 2003
I just finished this amazing book; it took me less than two days. I could not put it down.Catherine Taylor's intimate, first-person account of midwifery care that includes her own homebirth experience with a midwife and a doula is completely engrossing. You feel like you are in her world; you pull for her and for the women she describes; you wait with anticipation for a healthy birth, an impending cesarean, a hospital transfer.. you enter her world. And you love it. Not only does the book provide an entertaining, emotional narrative, it gives important insight into the political climate of midwifery care, the difficulties faced by midwives thrust into a hospital-based practice, and the practices and techniques used by modern midwives. The book illustrates a wide range of midwives, from the earthy, groovy, herbal mama to the suited-up, no-nonsense, "medicalized" nurse-midwife. She shows that there is not one typical midwife, but they all generally share the same goal: a healthy, fulfilled mother and a happy, healthy baby. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in midwifery care, every pregnant woman, and maybe some day, every obstetrician.
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