Books EVERYWHERE!!

Loren is getting a little sick of all the books I have littering the house these days. I've been obsessed with reading about pregnancy and birth.  For some reason, I've been drawn to books rather than the internet. I know, that's so last century. I've read a couple of good ones and a couple of not so good ones.  Here's a quick review of a few:

On Midwifery:

Non-Fiction: 

Ina May's Guide to Child Birth is what started this whole obsession of mine and opened my mind to the possibility of having a home birth.

Suggestion: Read "Ina May's Guide to Child Birth" rather than her "Birth Matters: A Midwife's Manifesta".  If you're going to read them both, don't read them back to back.  There is too much repetition of information. The Guide to Child Birth is full of empowering stories that really help to take the fear out of child birth, while the manifesta is more about the history of the unjust treatment women have faced in an institutionalized setting that is geared to benefit the doctor rather than the mother.  Both very interesting, but if you are obsessing about birth you might not be as into the history.

Review: A Guild to Child Birth is broken into two parts.  The first is birth stories written in the voice of the women who are telling them.  These stories read as "real" and convey the message that birthing is what our bodies were built to do and unless there is a major medical issue, all women can do it.  Part two is written by Ina May in which she reframes the birthing process from something to be feared to something to be empowered by as a woman.  She focuses on the deep connection giving birth with out drugs can create between you, your baby, your husband and all other women in the world who have gone through this uniquely female experience.  I loved this book.  The message really resonated with me and would recommend it to any woman who would be willing to read it with an open mind.

I might have been Ina'ed out by the time I picked up her manifesta, but it felt preachy and out dated.  Although it's interesting to learn the history of how home births nearly became extinct, I want to know what is truly going on in hospitals today (i.e. 2012 not 2001, 1979, 1953, etc.).  I still feel unclear as to whether or not there still tension between midwives and doctors because the most recent studies were from 2001 and those where few and far between references from 1972 or earlier? Are the situations Ina describes in her book still relevant to women entering a hospital today (beyond "it's good to know the history behind where we are today").

(Update: October 9th, 2012) After taking a bit of a break from Ina, I've since picked up "Spiritual Midwifery" and have enjoyed reading the birth stories.  This book is nice because you can pick it up and read a few stories and put it back down again for a while.  Again, it is inspiring and a great reminder that women birth babies all the time.



Memoir: 

I really enjoyed reading Peggy Vincent's "Baby Catcher".  It was very interesting to take the history I learned from reading Ina's books and hear Peggy talk about them in the same way when reflecting on her real life experiences. Peggy, was a midwife, and writes about birth after birth from her perspective and includes some history on the way pregnant women have been cared for by hospitals along the way. This was super engaging and easy to readI really enjoyed reading it.  The way her career lead her to meeting so many interesting people in such an intimate way was really touching.

 

Into These Hands , edited by Geradine Simkins, is a collection of short memoirs by 25 prominent midwives who have greatly impacted the culture of home births and have spent their life times advocating for women's health. This book reads as though it is written as inspiration for aspiring midwives to be...no wonder I am contemplating a career change. There's a lot of history, birth stories, and learning about the unique ways these women have shaped the home birth movement. I like this book because I can pick it up read a story or two and put it down, as I am someone who often reads several books at once. All the stories  are unique and interesting.

Fiction: 

These books are fiction and I read them a while ago, but also have to do with birth and midwives:

The Red Tent: My mom and nana recommended this books to me years ago and I've heard many rave reviews since. I finally got around to reading it last summer and could not put it down.   It's a Jewish tradition for authors to take minor characters from the bible and write novels about their lives in ways that reflect the stories in the bible, but expand on them. This is one of the only novels that expands on a female character's story, and is told from the perspective of Ruth. Set in biblical times (obviously) it's the story of sisters who all marry and love the same man, although he really plays a minor role.  The relationships between the women in the book are so strong and so fascinating.  Much of the book is set in the Red Tent where the women go when they are menstruating or birthing babies.  I read it a while ago - one of the sisters or Ruth - becomes a midwife, which becomes the central focus of the book.

Midwives: I read this book after reading the Red Tent because I wanted more and was not disappointed! This book is fiction, but reads very true from what I've been reading in other books by midwives. It's the story of a midwife who gets involved in a lawsuit after an unfortunate incident that was out of her control. I was listening to NPR the other day and it sounds like this author has another book out in which the characters of midwives. I'll have to do some more looking into that.

More on the pregnancy books later...