A Good Birth, A Safe Birth

I forgot to mention that I also finished reading A Good Birth, A Safe Birth, which also arrived recently from Bookins. This book is the source of the oft referenced quote, "if you don't know your options, you don't have any." This book didn't contain any new information for me, but it was still a good book and I'd recommend it to people having their first babies. It was published in 1992, so you have to read it with that eye--skimming past information that has since become dated. However, almost all of the information is still valid and research is research--if numerous studies have demonstrated numerous times that fetal monitors are not useful, it doesn't really matter how "old" the studies are if the use of the "technology" disproven hasn't changed and is still being used in current times in the debunked way that the "ancient" research showed to be harmful. It is interesting that several Amazon reviewed critiqued the book as being "outdated," instead of getting the point that our "up to date" hospitals persist in using very "outdated" (or disproven) approaches/techniques.

I also found it distressing that the "disturbing trend" the authors reference in the introduction to this third edition--the trend toward high-tech birth--is still accelerating 15 years after the book was published (this is what I mean about "old" info not being "old" if the problems are continuing despite mountains of evidence to the contrary!). Namely, cesareans and induction.

I'm planning to donate this book to my HMN chapter library when the chapter gets of the ground (I'm still working on the application process, so it might be a while! :-)