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"Parents Express
""Presents a full picture of maternity care in America."
""Presents a full picture of maternity care in America."
"Mothering"
"Not only a must-read for any woman planning to have a baby in the near future, but also for anyone who cares about how the healthcare industry's interface with politics affects the quality of our lives here in the U.S....Impeccably researched...Moving and full of gritty details...Read[s] like a can't-put-it-down novel."
Product Description
This book offers a provocative and incisive analysis of medical intervention at childbirth - an experience fast becoming the norm in America, even as women seek more choice. In the U.S, nearly half of all mothers are chemically induced into labour whether they want it or not, and almost a third give birth via Caesarean section. For women who want an alternative, choice is often unavailable: Midwives are outlawed in eleven states and birthing centres are illegal in one. When did birth become an emergency instead of an emergence? When did normal, physiological birth become a crime? A groundbreaking journalistic narrative, "Pushed" presents the complete picture of birth in America from the frontlines. Crisscrossing the country to investigate all sides of the issue, and witness to several births - from a planned Caesarean to an underground home birth - Jennifer Block examines childbirth as a reproductive rights issue, exploring the implications of the widely held assumption that routine C-sections, inductions, and epidurals equal medical progress. Block's research and experience show that while medical intervention certainly has its place, there is compelling evidence that we are overusing medical technology at the expense of maternal and foetal health: Either women's bodies are failing, or the system is failing women.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
"Pushed" is an alarming compilation of statistics and personal interviews about the status of birth in the United States. While the author does sensationalize some things to try to hit the point home, we see clearly here, how sick our birthing industry has become. The author points to threats of lawsuits and increasing insurance concerns that is driving the trend for more risky cesarean births in place of normal births. Certainly cesarean has its place in special situations, but more and more it has become the default for every case of even the slightest hint that there possibly could be a concern during birth. "Pushed" is an urgent call to look at how wrong we have it, as a whole. The trend towards cesarean births in a culture puts fear lawsuits ahead of good care for mothers and babies.
Review is by Ramiel Nagel author of Healing Our Children: Because Your New Baby Matters! Sacred Wisdom for Preconception, Pregnancy, Birth and Parenting (ages 0-6) & Cure Tooth Decay: Heal and Prevent Cavities with Nutrition (First Edition).
Review is by Ramiel Nagel author of Healing Our Children: Because Your New Baby Matters! Sacred Wisdom for Preconception, Pregnancy, Birth and Parenting (ages 0-6) & Cure Tooth Decay: Heal and Prevent Cavities with Nutrition (First Edition).
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
90 reviews
326 of 329 people found the following review helpful
I wish this book came out 3 years ago
8 Sep 2007
Format:Hardcover
Exactly 3 years ago I walked into one of the finest maternity hospitals in NJ to deliver my first baby. I was low risk - under 30, no complications - and was expected to have a smooth delivery.
11 hours later I was laying in a bed by myself staring at a ceiling, completely shell shocked, and without my baby, husband or family, I was immobilized in a recovery room with a gaping wound in my belly while my new daughter was off in the nursery. I had no idea what went wrong. It seemed that I had simply stopped dilating or "failed to progress."
As I read Jennifer Block's book, I just nodded as it all became very clear - the insistence by the staff that we would just hurry things up a little by performing an amniotomy (breaking my water) when I was still in early labor. That was followed by pitocin (to "really" get things moving), stadol (a narcotic pain reliever), an epidural and finally, a c-section. My labor was simply one of many completely over-managed and over controlled labors in American hospitals. They finally decided that a c-section was the only way to end my labor. I was lead to believe my labor was a "problem" and a "complication" and surgery was the only answer.
I wish this book could become mandatory reading for all women who are planning a hospital delivery. Contrary to recent reports (as discussed in this book), very few women are actually requesting a c-section on a completely voluntary basis. Years ago I was "pushed" by the obstetrical community into an unwanted delivery experience.
Today I am pregnant with my second child. And I am pushing back.
11 hours later I was laying in a bed by myself staring at a ceiling, completely shell shocked, and without my baby, husband or family, I was immobilized in a recovery room with a gaping wound in my belly while my new daughter was off in the nursery. I had no idea what went wrong. It seemed that I had simply stopped dilating or "failed to progress."
As I read Jennifer Block's book, I just nodded as it all became very clear - the insistence by the staff that we would just hurry things up a little by performing an amniotomy (breaking my water) when I was still in early labor. That was followed by pitocin (to "really" get things moving), stadol (a narcotic pain reliever), an epidural and finally, a c-section. My labor was simply one of many completely over-managed and over controlled labors in American hospitals. They finally decided that a c-section was the only way to end my labor. I was lead to believe my labor was a "problem" and a "complication" and surgery was the only answer.
I wish this book could become mandatory reading for all women who are planning a hospital delivery. Contrary to recent reports (as discussed in this book), very few women are actually requesting a c-section on a completely voluntary basis. Years ago I was "pushed" by the obstetrical community into an unwanted delivery experience.
Today I am pregnant with my second child. And I am pushing back.
71 of 71 people found the following review helpful
A Must-read For Any Woman Contemplating Childbirth
14 July 2007
Format:Hardcover
Not only was this an amazing book packed full of easy-to-understand statistics and little-known information on what hospital birth is like in the US, but it is an absolute page-turner with plenty of gripping real-life stories from all types of people (physicians, nurses, midwives, mothers, lawyers, activists, etc.) with experience in this system.
I used to have a vague idea, before this book, of some of the interventions I would absolutely not allow if I were to give birth in a hospital, but since reading this book and doing some additional research (via other books and internet) my eyes have really been opened. I could never watch TLC's "A Baby Story" the same way again!
I think this book is a must-read for any woman contemplating childbirth. It is such a shame that SO FEW women know that there are options OUTSIDE of the hospital, and that they don't have to be forced by physicians to submit to procedures and interventions (e.g., episiotomies, continuous fetal monitors, cesareans) to which they DO NOT consent.
Read this book (and others) to prepare yourself.
I used to have a vague idea, before this book, of some of the interventions I would absolutely not allow if I were to give birth in a hospital, but since reading this book and doing some additional research (via other books and internet) my eyes have really been opened. I could never watch TLC's "A Baby Story" the same way again!
I think this book is a must-read for any woman contemplating childbirth. It is such a shame that SO FEW women know that there are options OUTSIDE of the hospital, and that they don't have to be forced by physicians to submit to procedures and interventions (e.g., episiotomies, continuous fetal monitors, cesareans) to which they DO NOT consent.
Read this book (and others) to prepare yourself.
82 of 83 people found the following review helpful
A wake-up call for Americans
6 Jun 2007
Format:Hardcover
This engaging journalistic expose was a real eye-opener, and a must-read not just for women, but for anyone considering becoming a parent, or really anyone concerned with the direction health care in the U.S. is headed. The cesarean rate in our country is over 30%, nearly three times that of some European countries. Are our bodies really that different? Somehow, I doubt it. Ms. Block explores the troubling trends that push doctors to perform often uncalled-for major abdominal surgery, and shows how this is harmful both to mothers and babies. With stylish, riveting prose, an exciting first-hand account of traveling "underground" with an illegal midwife, and tales from the operating table, Block skillfully takes stock of the current state of birth in America. Not to be missed.
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