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The Painful Truth About Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care
Da Capo Lifelong Books
June 2007
On Sale: June 1, 2007
316 pages
ISBN: 0738210730
EAN: 9780738210735
Hardcover
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Self-Help
A provocative and incisive analysis of childbirth in the age
of machines, malpractice, and managed care. In the
United States, more than half the women who give birth are
given drugs to induce or speed up labor; for nearly a third
of mothers, childbirth is major surgery - the cesarean
section. For women who want an alternative, choice is often
unavailable: Midwives are sometimes inaccessible; in eleven
states they are illegal. In one of those states, even
birthing centers are outlawed. When did birth become an
emergency instead of an emergence? Since when is normal,
physiological birth a crime? A groundbreaking
journalistic narrative, Pushed presents the complete
picture of maternity care in America. Crisscrossing the
country to report what women really experience during
childbirth, Jennifer Block witnessed several births - from a
planned cesarean to an underground home birth. Against this
backdrop, Block investigates whether routine C-sections,
inductions, and epidurals equal medical progress. She
examines childbirth as a reproductive rights issue: Do women
have the right to an optimal birth experience? If so, is
that right being upheld? Block's research and experience
reveal in vivid detail that while emergency obstetric care
is essential, there is compelling evidence that we are
overusing medical technology at the expense of maternal and
infant health: Either women's bodies are failing, or the
system is failing women.
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