The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth is Really for ALL Women!

So, you find out your pregnant and you go to the bookstore - because after all you HAVE to get pregnancy books. You see a book entitled "A Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth" you look at it, and think "You know, I would really rather not know". But, maybe you really should know....

The epidural rate in the US is between 70 and 80%. Our C-section rate is heading up to one-third of all births. And yet we rank 27th in infant mortality. Countries like Aruba, Canada, Australia and Germany (heck, most of Europe) all have better infant mortality rates than the US does. Doctors are getting more and more wary of being sued and really aren't asking anymore why they do things. They do things a certain way because they have always been done that way. Childbirth has become an illness that needs to be managed.

In the face of all this, along with hospital cutbacks - making it easier for a monitor to watch a patient, than a nurse - we have lost sight of what childbirth should be. Pregnant women are not being well informed. Hospital Childbirth classes are more about preparation for being a good hospital patient, then they are about actually teaching couples about childbirth (Just 2 weeks ago, a local hospital childbirth educator told me that she "was not there to teach them to ask questions" this was after I had observed her class and heard her give misinformation to a room full of first time moms).

As a doula (professional labor support person), I feel that it is my duty to inform couples of all the risks and benefits of the myriad of interventions that are standard in a hospital birth. My motto is "Empowering Families Through Education". My goal is for all my clients to have an empowering birth experience. This does not necessarily mean a natural, drug-free birth, by the way. It is very possible to have an empowering c-section, and it is just as possible to have a natural birth where you felt you had no control. It is really all in how you work with your caregiver and how you approach your impending birth. It also does not mean, ignoring your doctor/midwives advice either. But it does mean getting all the information you can from as many sources as you can, and then making a decision that is right for you (not what is best for your doctor, doula, or anyone else - just you and your baby).

Henci Goer's book "The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth" is a huge step in the right direction. Ms. Goer believes in "Evidence-Based Care". This means that you take all the information you have and make a decision based on what is best at that time, and not necessarily because that is the way it has always been done.

What she does in this book is go through all the various interventions that can happen in a birth and talks about when they might be done, as well as the pros and cons of all of them. The Book is very well organized with 13 chapters covering basically all facets of childbirth:

1) Cesarean Sections
2) Breech Babies
3) Labor Induction
4) IV 's in Labor
5) lectronic Fetal Monitoring
6) Breaking Your Water
7) Slow Labor
8) Epidurals and Narcotics
9) Episiotomies
10) Elective Repeat C-Sections
11) Doulas
12) Choosing a caregiver
13) Choosing a Birthplace.

The chapters are all laid out the same way. They start with a general overview of the topic, followed by descriptions of the procedures and then the "Bottom Line" where she lists all the pros and cons of the procedure as well "gleanings" from the medical literature. Following the Chapters are 120 pages of Appendices going through Chapter by chapter and citing all of the references and medical studies that she refers to in the text.

There is no doubt that Ms. Goer is biased towards natural childbirth, however she admits that in the introduction. At the same time, any book you read is going to have some bias. In many ways her book is a much more unbiased account than others, in that it does goes through some really complicated material simplifying it to make it easy for anyone to understand and really trying to show the risks and benefits of all procedures (rather than just one or the other).

Ms. Goer's writing style is very down-to-earth and understandable, even though she is dealing with some really tough topics.

This book has become an integral part of my library, and one I recommend to all my clients as they think about the birth that they want to have and plan their own birth experiences. At the very least it gets them to think about things, so that when they are in labor they can truly make informed choices.

Isn't that the way it is supposed to be?