Reddit mentions of Birth: The Surprising History of How We Are Born

I think things have to change with malpractice insurance. It has to. We are losing MDs doing births at all because of this. Our cesarean rate is also rising - we are losing any resemblance to natural birth in the hospital. In fact, I hear the word "natural birth" to mean "vaginal birth".

Doctors are given lower malpractice premiums when they have higher cesarean rates. This is not acceptable!

We used to be shocked at Brazil's 95% cesarean rate. I think we're well on our way. In my community, 40% of first time moms have cesareans.

I hope that we can find inroads that are free from malpractice protocols that allow docs to collaborate with midwives for teaching, safety, and general empowerment of women. I see other countries doing it, but unfortunately, our healthcare and malpractice system does little to help this goal of mine. :(

Our maternal and infant mortality rates are dismal. And it's not because we're using less technology or interventions. It's because we're using more. I really recommend a book called Expecting Trouble: The Myth of Prenatal Care in America by Thomas Strong, MD. He's a third generation MD, second gen OB and he has some amazing insights. Mainly, leave high risk and surgical birth to OBs, turn all other care over to midwives for better outcomes...and look at technology more judiciously.

Other books I recommend are:

Born in the USA: How a Broken Maternity System Must Be Fixed to Put Women and Children First by Marsden Wagner, MD

Pushed: The Painful Truth About Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care by Jennifer Block

Birth: The Surprising History of How We Are Born by Tina Cassidy

Lying In: A History of Childbirth in America

Above all, I wish that more providers would see that the motherbaby is one unit. They are not antagonists towards each other. Less intervention is better and if we could move towards more evidence-based practices we might see better outcomes.

Again, it all boils down to allowing doctors to practice freely. We have to see malpractice reform.

I read this book years ago and am now rereading it.

It's both very informative, very terrifying, and very awesome.
It explains in one of the early chapters basically what zeneparker said :)

https://www.amazon.com/Birth-Surprising-History-How-Born/dp/0802143245

this is somewhat true, though in the days of twilight sleep they used very "high forceps" to pull babies out.

and with twilight sleep, you didn't really sleep. it was a combo of a heavy anesthetic with an amnesiac. essentially, women were strapped down because they would writhe and kick and sometimes hallucinate. if you received twilight sleep, you just never remembered.

here are a couple good looks at the history of childbirth:

http://www.amazon.com/Pushed-Painful-Childbirth-Modern-Maternity/dp/0738211664

http://www.amazon.com/Birth-Surprising-History-How-Born/dp/0802143245/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1348108086&sr=1-3&keywords=tina+cassidy

I don't know if this book has anything about inductions, but I read the first few chapters before I had to return it to the library and it gives a pretty comprehensive history of birth practices, so I imagine it would.

https://www.amazon.ca/Birth-Surprising-History-How-Born/dp/0802143245

Good, WTE sucks anyway.

Our body, ourselves the pregnancy edition is really good.
http://www.amazon.com/Our-Bodies-Ourselves-Pregnancy-Birth/dp/B001IV5W80/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1334665215&sr=8-1

The Birth book
http://www.amazon.com/The-Birth-Book-Everything-Satisfying/dp/0316779075/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1334665234&sr=1-1

I haven't read Ina May's books, but they should be pretty interesting (especially if you're interested in a more natural approach).

This is not a birth book per se, but it has amazing information. It may be better to wait until after delivery, though:
http://www.amazon.com/Birth-The-Surprising-History-Born/dp/0802143245/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1334665328&sr=1-1