Pushed: The Painful Truth About Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care

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Type: Book
Studio: Da Capo Press

and I'm pro-technology!
I am the least crunchy person on the planet, but this book (among other things) convinced me to do what I could to go natural.

PROS:
1) The book accurately describes the infantilization of women in the OB office. I had a hard time believing this was accurate when I was reading the book, but meeting with the doctors was totally humiliating and horrible. MANY if not most treat you like a) an idiot with no reasoning facilities, b) a vessel for your baby and c) an obstacle. Be prepared. The book will prepare you to expect this and give you information necessary to be strong.

2) The book is fairly well-researched, and gives lots of facts, statistics, and best- and worst-case scenarios.

3) The book is relatively fair in terms of presenting some situations in which home birth turns gruesome.

4) The history section really gives you a sense for how things got this way. The author presents the information in a way that grounds the present in the past, which makes it pretty convincing. It doesn't sound all "I'm a hippie and doctors are the male establishment!" hysterical, it simply shows how at certain times in history it was in the best interest of different parties to change the birthing process in a way that led to how things are done now.

What I most liked about this was how it pointed up the dearth of actual scientific analysis backing up the current hospital MO.

CONS:
1) The writing style is a little sensationalistic and heavily anecdotal. This personalizes the information, but at the same time undermines the starkness of the data. Which is not to say the facts aren't there, but the anecdotes take up more room, so it's easy to lose data in the anecdotes. A more skeptical reader may be put off by the pages of emotional stories and thus not really SEE the facts also there.

2) I agree that the stuff at the end about abortion is extraneous. On the good side, I think it was useful to point out the failure of the women's movement to embrace mothers' and babies' rights, but on the down side, it might offend some friends of mom and baby rights. I'm totally pro-choice myself, but I didn't think it necessary to the main point of the book.

3) What could have replaced some of the anecdotes and pro-choice stuff? I would have prefered to see more suggestions for how to handle the facts on the ground. Most moms cannot afford to pay out of pocket, so I'd have liked to see suggestions of how to have a hospital birth and work around the system. All hospital births come with the posibility of being delivered by someone not amenable to your way of thinking (as the book states). So then what? How do you avoid getting on the clock? How do you talk to your doctor at your last OB appointment when they start talking about induction? How can you encourage your baby to come sooner so that induction is less likely? Etc.

For various reasons, I did not know until my third month that I was pg. I read this book right away, but when I finished, I was at my fourth month, and no other OB would take me, though I had DEFINITELY figured out that the OB I initially chose was a bad choice. So I had to manage the doctor. And it ended up having a happy ending, but with a lot more sturm und drang on the way than there needed to be. I figured out how to avoid making apointments and checkups by walking out without talking to the apointment desk, by rescheduling appointments at the last minute, by not answering the phone. Seriously. And just FYI, check around for the home remedy induction methods, e.g., oils, teas, etc. It really helped me to ripen so that, though genetically predisposed to long labors, my whole process lasted 3.5 hours. Much easier to have uninvasive delivery when it goes fast.

I figured out my own ways of avoiding intervention, but I would have really liked some information from the author on avoiding intervention when you have an invasive doctor.

End of the story though: this is a book that needed to be written, and is basically a necessity for any woman considering pg. Take the anecdotes for what they are, but make sure you read the facts and figures carefully, and pay particular attention to the history section. It will make you stronger.

Incredibly readable, well documented research book
Excellent review of current stats on maternity care in the US. Filled with research, yet it is an easy read. Every woman in America needs to read this book before making a decision on where and with whom she'll have her baby. HIGHLY RECOMMEND!!!

You'll Probably Never Go To A Hospital Again After Reading This
"Pushed" is an alarming compilation of statistics and personal interviews about the status of birth in the United States. While the author does sensationalize some things to try to hit the point home, we see clearly here, how sick our birthing industry has become. The author points to threats of lawsuits and increasing insurance concerns that is driving the trend for more risky cesarean births in place of normal births. Certainly cesarean has its place in special situations, but more and more it has become the default for every case of even the slightest hint that there possibly could be a concern during birth. "Pushed" is an urgent call to look at how wrong we have it, as a whole. The trend towards cesarean births in a culture puts fear lawsuits ahead of good care for mothers and babies. The book is very well written.

Review is by Ramiel Nagel author of Healing Our Children: Because Your New Baby Matters! Sacred Wisdom for Preconception, Pregnancy, Birth and Parenting (ages 0-6) & Cure Tooth Decay: Heal and Prevent Cavities with Nutrition (First Edition)

All Women Must Read this!!!
This book was well researched and extremely well written. I love how the author presents a history in the hospitalization of modern birth and the detrimental effects. Why is modern medicine treating birth as an illness and not the normal physiological process that it is??? She also alludes to how birth violence equates to the oppression of women and ponders why none of the birth rights organizations are not interested in actual birth rights. They are only concerned with abortion rights, which seems counter intuitive. This author is bringing to light a very disturbing and on-going trend of violence against women (only happening in America) during birth. Please read this book!

Important
If you're pregnant and can only read one book about childbirth, it should be this one. Written in an engaging but pragmatic journalistic style, this is a fabulously researched look at what has gone wrong in hospital delivery rooms, leading to a 33 percent C-section rate in America today.