Pushed: The Painful Truth About Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care
Hard-pressed: The Awkward Truth About Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care Books
- ISBN13: 9780738211664
- Shape up: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
A groundbreaking narrative investigation of childbirth in the age of machines, misconduct, and managed care, Hard-pressed presents the complete picture of maternity care in America. From surrounded by the operating room of a sickbay 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. Hard-pressed surveys the broadcast health impact of routine labor inductions, C-sections, and epidurals, but also examines childbirth as a women’s rights come forth: Do women even have the aptly to choose a normal birth? Is that aptly being upheld? A wake-up call for our times, Block’s gripping research reveals that even as emergency obstetric care is essential, we are overusing medical technology at the expense of maternal and infant health.
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That’s what the is author must reckon pregnant women are.
The plural of anecdote is not data.
Pregnant women deserved top quality evidence based medicine. Not this uselss pap.
Rating: 1 / 5
Even as there is no doubt that c-sections and inductions are done at a higher rate than need be, the author is extremely selective in the anecdotes she chooses and absolutely ignores the fact that in the excellent ol’ days, when women all gave birth at home, there was a staggering maternal and infant death rate. In addition, some of her in rank about neonatologists and pediatricians at births is just plain incorrect. I am a pediatrician and it was clear that she did not know what was going on in the cases when a neonatologist was there. She absolutely glosees over a horrible home delivery as not being that huge a deal. As a physician reading it I was horrified, not only by the description, but also by the midwife instructing parents to refuse antibiotic eye gel or a Hepatitis B vaccine. Who do these people reckon they are? We are back to having babies die of pertussis in our hospitals because of people refusing the vaccine. The author has her thought she wants to “push” and that is the only one she deems OK. Honestly, I reckon parents and midwives who have homebirths with terrible outcomes for the babies should be prosecuted.
Rating: 1 / 5
I have to agree with some other reviewers in part. How many people routinely tell their OB/GYN’s honest answers about their sexual history? Though nearly everyone is tested early in pregnancy for chlamydia, what if a woman contracts during pregnancy and does not know it? More than 50% of women who have chlamydia have absolutely NO symptoms. Is it worth your baby going blind just to avoid some goopy eye cream that lasts less than an hour? Question for the nursery to apply the eye medicine after you and baby have had a opportunity to bond.
Of course hep B has nothing to do with pertussis. Many people choose not to get the pertussis vaccine for themselves and their kids. Now we have a huge pertussis outbreak in the US. Vaccines are not perfect but they are safe and they reduce risk. If you stop giving the hep b vaccine, hep b will increase as well. There is no reason you have to give it in the sickbay if you are low risk but it should be done by eight weeks of age.
If you really want to reduce c-sections, get a new legal system instead of a new health care system. As long as an OB/GYN can get sued for failure to do a c-section (even when it probably would not make a difference) then every time something is even slightly ” not normal ” during labor a c-section will be the result. How often will a lawyer sue a doctor for doing a c-section and delivering a healthy baby? NEVER! OB/GYNs get sued for not doing c-sections, even if at the time the patient says she doesn’t want one, and for not doing a c-section soon enough.
I read a blog by a woman who had one c-section with a healthy baby and then had about four home births after. One of her home births died in the first hours of life, one had severe disabilities and one was normal. Is one out of three healthy babies ok? Not for me! This woman was content with her choices and with the health of her surviving children. If you are content with this, fine. If not, have the baby at the sickbay. Not every terrible outcome is preventable, but who will you blame if you deliver at home and the baby died? Can you live with knowing something might have been different?
Please don’t complain about your doctors choosing to do c-sections. The goal of pregnancy is a healthy baby. If at the end of pregnancy you get a healthy baby, don’t complain! Rejoyce! If you want a awkward unmedicated vaginal delivery and don’t care
about the health of your baby, then go for a home birth. If you want a fantastic birth experience, find a doctor or midwife who will work with you but intervene only when necessary to make sure a healthy baby. There are many docs out there who will listen to what women want and tell them the truth when a c-section is not compulsory. Sure, nothing is 100%, but the goal of pregnancy is a healthy baby! We should all work together to reach that goal.
Rating: 2 / 5
If you’ve seen the Rikki Lake documentary then you know just so what you are getting with Hard-pressed. Is it biased? Sure is..but it is still an vital book to read if you are a woman who is considering getting pregnant or who is pregnant. It’s vital to educate yourself on ALL of your maternity options and they are so limited these days. Get both sides of the tale of course and to be honest I wish there was an equally biased source telling the excellent side of sickbay births in America these days. For now I’ll be googling and continuing to trust but VERIFY VERIFY VERIFY.
Overall and quick read. Lots of stats but not dry. You may possibly read this in an afternoon or two.
Rating: 4 / 5
This book should be required reading for every woman, let lonely every pregnant woman.
I already knew a lot of the basics talked about in this book, but was HORRIFIED at many of the tales told. It is incredible how we have allowed women to be hard-pressed, bullied, and battered into making choices they don’t want, and into having their bodies abused by procedures they don’t need. Reading this made me so, so glad I chose to give birth to my son in a birthing focal top with a midwife, and I plot on having home or birthing focal top births for whatever childrenI have in the future.
Rating: 5 / 5