Book Review

I recently read the book Pushed: The Painful Truth About Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care by Jennifer Block. I really enjoyed reading the book. It was very helpful to read about people’s experiences and beliefs about childbirth but what I most enjoyed was the scientific data to back it all up.

From the very beginning both Josh and I have felt we would prefer a natural birth for our baby. Neither of us are big “medicine” people to begin with and it just seems that this is something that a woman’s body has been created to do. I know and love many women who have never had children and I don’t want anyone to think that I am saying a woman was made to have children but our God is an Awesome Creator. I believe that when woman was created God had in mind that she would have the ability to bear children and thus created her with that in mind. I am not saying there is anything wrong with a woman who does not bear children! Ok now that is out of the way…

I firmly believe there were many, many women before me who have given birth without even the assistance of a doctor let alone Pitocin, Oxytocin, Epidural, and what have you. And so I (for the time being) am holding firm that if God has created my body with the mind that I will someday bring a child into this world that has grown inside my body then I am going to let it happen as naturally as possible. I read somewhere once that God will not give us more than we can handle. I do know that sometimes things arise that require medical intervention and we will cross those roads if/when we come to them.

So back to this book, Pushed, I thoroughly enjoyed reading about the experiences women have had with hospital births because that is what we will be going through. Thankfully our doctor is very supportive of natural childbirth as long as it is safe for the baby. There are many doctors who do not support this and the book brought to light many things I had never thought about. I don’t remember which blog first referred this book to me but when I first started reading it I had to stop for a while because I was getting so freaked out about what the birth was going to be like. Then I was able to step back and look at it from a learning standpoint and making myself educated about all the options and sometimes requirements that come with having your baby in a hospital. The book helped me to be able to say, “Ok, these are the options that I will be faced with and maybe the hospital staff will try to talk me into and these are the reasons why I will refuse these things.”

I think every person should be informed when they make decisions and it is so important to be educated on your options before you make a decision so I guess now I should read a book promoting the use of drugs during delivery! :) I do know that having read this book and talking through it with Josh will help us in the long run. If I feel like I cannot do this naturally we will have some reasons already set in our minds on why we are doing this and be able to remind each other of that.

I would highly recommend reading this book if you are expecting. Probably not a good idea to read it before otherwise you might not ever want to have a baby!! :)

I do owe you all another post because I recently made a bunch more diapers that I need to showcase, let me just say these ones are so tiny and cute I can hardly wait to put them on our little girl!!