Pushed: The Painful Truth About Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care
by Jennifer Block
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jennifer BlockEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-04-08
ISBN: 0738211664
Number of pages: 344
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Book Reviews of Pushed: The Painful Truth About Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care
Book Review: and I'm pro-technology!
Summary: 5 Stars
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.
Summary of Pushed: The Painful Truth About Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care
A groundbreaking narrative investigation of childbirth in the age of machines, malpractice, and managed care, Pushed presents the complete picture of maternity care in America. From inside the operating room of a hospital with a 44% Cesarean rate to the living room floor of a woman who gives birth with an illegal midwife, Block exposes a system in which few women have an optimal experience. Pushed surveys the public health impact of routine labor inductions, C-sections, and epidurals, but also examines childbirth as a women?s rights issue: Do women even have the right to choose a normal birth? Is that right being upheld? A wake-up call for our times, Block?s gripping research reveals that while emergency obstetric care is essential, we are overusing medical technology at the expense of maternal and infant health.
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