Your Best Birth: Book Review

You know you are birth junkie when you go on vacation, only 6 weeks after having a baby, and you take a book about birth along for "fun reading". At one point the woman across the aisle from me on the airplane gave me a strange look. I wanted to yell across to her, "No, I'm not pregnant! I'm a doula". I restrained myself but decided I'd better keep the book in my bag... at least while I was holding a newborn.

In the last few years I've read A LOT of books on birth and this is definitely one of my new favorites.

It is written by Ricki Lake and Abby Epstein the producers of the documentary "The Business of Being Born." When I picked this book up at the library I wasn't sure if I was going to like it, I thought that it might just be a repeat of the movie. While I liked the movie for its ability to highlight how out of control maternity care is in the United States, I didn't think that it did much to help women find the choices that would help them and their baby have the best possible birth experience. Well, this book fills in what the movie left out. Yes, it is biased towards natural birth (it says that right on the front cover) but its main emphasis is on helping women discover that they have choices about how and where they give birth. It challenges women not to just let birth "happen" to them, but to be informed, active and constructive participants in the birth process. In their introduction they say:

"This book is not intended to lecture you about the way you should have your baby, but it is about helping you overcome your fears, the pressures, and the fads and ultimately allowing you to have an empowering and beautiful experience to share with your family. This book will serve as a reminder that giving birth is something women instinctually know how to do, and that you can tap into your own innate sense of power to take back the birth experience. " (pg.xxiii)

I thought that this was a really empowering book and I loved how they talked about birthing women as "goddesses". Throughout the book they share the birth experiences of several "Birth Goddesses", celebrities like Melissa Joan Hart, Kellie Martin, Laila Ali, and Cindy Crawford (listen to her story here and here... it is fantastic). This is my new favorite quote about birth and I wish that I could post it on every pregnant mother's (especially first time mother's) bathroom mirror:

"Creating life is goddess work. You are stronger, more powerful, and more focused than you've ever been. Life force is coursing through your body and you are living life in a heightened state of awareness. You are extremely sensitive to smell and taste and to the people, situations, and changes in the atmosphere that might do you or your baby harm. What might make you feel vulnerable also makes you fierce. People better watch out because you will do almost anything to protect your baby.

In this state you are amazing. You are going to access parts of yourself that you didn't know existed. You are going to face your fears. You have decided to face pain and handle it in a way that makes you most comfortable. Dealing with fear and facing pain are the kinds of things that most people run from as fast as they can, but not you. You are the birth goddess and you will do what needs to be done.

When you come out the other side of this experience, you will be a different woman than when you went in. You will know yourself better and have a much broader sense of what you are capable of doing. You will be smarter and stronger than you've ever been before. Each birth experience is extraordinary, yet at the same time birth is commonplace. Millions of women do this every year. After the birth of your child, you will be connected to all the women who have given birth across the centuries as well as deeply connected to your baby." (pg.31-32)

What a beautiful way to approach birth, and such a different perspective than what most women in the United States are accustomed to. What if doctors put quotes like these in their prenatal pamphlet bags instead of formula samples? How different would maternity care be then? How different would women view their bodies? How different would society treat women, especially mothers?

There is a lot of information about birth out there, much of it contradicting, and it can be confusing for a woman to know which choices are right for her and her baby. When it comes right down to it how a woman births is a personal and spiritual decision. She deserves to be educated and aware of all her options and risks; she shouldn't have to make a choice as important as where and how to birth her baby out of fear.

I think that this book does a good job presenting all the options and helping women weigh the risks and benefits. It also reminds women that birth is big business for hospitals and doctors and that they need to be proactive consumers. Lake and Epstein mention that most women spend more time researching their stroller than they do the doctor or the hospital that are going to deliver their baby. Women need to do their research and demand the type of care that treats women like the "birth goddesses" they are, especially when they are paying big bucks.

One of my favorite chapters was the one for women who are the victims of sexual abuse. Sexual abuse is topic that most birth books don't address, so I found it fascinating to read the birth experiences of women whose births helped them heal and to gain confidence in themselves and in their bodies. Birth is definitely not a "one size fits all" commodity and every woman should make an educated and personal decision about what type of care she wants for her and her baby. There will always be unknowns and uncertainties in birth, but it is empowering for a woman to know that if she is proactive she can create the birth experience she needs to heal and grow as an individual.

I would high recommend this book to any pregnant woman, especially a first time mother, a woman thinking (even remotely) about having a natural birth, a survivor of sexual abuse, or a woman whose first birth experience wasn't everything she wanted it to be. Birth really is goddess work and it is nice to read a book that reminds us of that.