Your Best Birth: Know All Your Options, Discover the Natural Choices, and Take Back the Birth Experience, (Paperback)

from Karyn_Ainsworth

I think this book is much more relevant to an American audience. In Australia many of our maternity wards are staffed predominantly by midwives, and there just isn't the huge litigation problem that pushes doctors onto such a medical system.

from papertygers

Easy to read, but very, very biased toward natural birth, as much as it pretended to be otherwise. Demonizes medical interventions quite a bit, and doesn't mention any downsides at all to the "amazing super-empowering birth goddess" way of thought. Talks a lot about medicine wanting only to take ...

from librarybrandy

Yes, I've been reading this for the obvious reasons.On the whole, there's a lot of good information here that's worth thinking about, though there is an obvious bias for a much crunchier style of birth than I'd feel comfortable with (there are a lot of stories of home births, for instance, and wh...

from ksimon

According to the authors of Your Best Birth, the U.S. tends toward a model of childbirth that is far too focused on the medical, on bypassing the natural process of childbirth in favor of a managed, controlled and clinical production. Childbirth, in the U.S., is an emergency -- a crisis -- requir...

from vanedow

Last word first: A great look at childbirth, with so much more detail than that chapter at the back of "What to Expect." About the Book (from the Hachette site): With chapters such as "Obstetricians: Finding Dr. Right," "Epidurals: You Haven't Got Time for the Pain," and "Electronic Monitors: Rea...