Customer Reviews

Birth as an American Rite of Passage (Comparative Studies of Health Systems and Medical Care)

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The majority of obstetric procedures, from putting on a hospital gown to the birthing position itself, are unnecessary and sometimes dangerous rituals that are perpetuated by an authoritarian system in its desire to maintain control over a virtually uncontrollable process. Robbie Davis-Floyd has studied these rituals of birth; why taking the ride to L&D in the wheelchair sets up an invalid mindset in the laboring woman, and how the lithotomy position robs the woman of her birthing power, forcing her to rely on the medical professions to deliver her baby for her.

It is powerful stuff and difficult to accept, but truth sometimes is.

If you really want to know what to expect when you're expecting, read this book and Henci Goer's Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth. If you'd really like to remove yourself from the technobirth machine, read Ina May Gaskin's Ina May's Guide to Childbirth and Spiritual Midwifery. If you've always thought you might want a natural birth, read Peggy O'Mara's Having a Baby, Naturally. And remember this one thing: If you really (really) want a natural, unmedicated birth, don't give birth in a hospital.

If you are a woman looking for a thoughtful review of our modern birthing culture this is a wonderful book. I have read a lot about birth options, perspectives of the birth experience, and midwifery history and philosophy but went away wanting for more. My desire to really explore an informed text about our birthing culture was finally satiated by this book. I am not an anthropologist by training and yet found the book accessible, educational, and challenging. I really suggest this book be read by everyone interested in the birth experience, partners, attendants, birthing woman, or children of technocracy.

This was a paradigm blowing must read for any woman. A fluid read and with intense narratives. The most educational book I've read in a long time.

Ok, I'm feeling a little self-conscious being the first male reviewer of this book on Amazon, but here it is. Everyone should read this book, male or female, American or not, whatever. This book will change the way you look not only at childbirth but at the medical profession and society as a whole. It's a fascinating read. Most of the book is applicable throughout most of the world.

Pregnant women of course will get out of this a social critique regarding the approaches to childbirth in hospitals, how these support and ensure the continuation of patriarchy in our society, etc. Women who are not pregnant will gain from it a different sense of modern medicine and society as a whole. Men are likely to be confronted with a great deal of information about the nature of culture and things we take for granted all the time.

In the end, this is a solid piece of anthropology, and moreover it does well what women's studies are supposed to do: provide a new angle over well-trodden ground which explores the cultural contradictions regarding gender roles in modern society. This is not a book full of laments of lost prestige (as stereotypes might lead one to presume), but rather a careful, reasoned critique of how our culture operates and how this is intensified during the childbirth process. It further explores why so many women accept and embrace patriarchy in childbirth.

More to the point, this book will challenge how you look at health care more generally and its relationship to societal values. Highly recommended.

this is a very important book. it may be a little heavy on the (anthropological) jargon for some people but it is worth it. it's an eye-opening study of the medicalization of birth in our culture and it's really interesting, upsetting, and informative. she includes many interviews with women who have birthed in hospitals and obstetricians describing their socialization/training/beliefs. i do believe that any woman giving birth owes it to herself to explore this issue. it is actually statistically less safe for low-risk women to deliver in a hospital than at home with a competent midwife (in terms of maternal & fetal infections and deaths). whether you already know that you want an epidural or if you are hoping for a natural birth, you should become aware of the practices that are commonplace in hospitals so that you can make informed decisions about what is right for you and your baby. it is possible (though very challenging) to have a "natural" birth in a hospital but it is a constant uphill battle to avoid the numerous dangerous interventions the medically-oriented practitioners try to push on women without evidence that they help (indeed, with research that shows that they hinder the progress of labor or make recovery more difficult for the woman).

I thought I was going to die trying to get through the first 40 pages, but soon after, it improved dramatically. I think what made it difficult to read was the thesis format. Much of the information is very interesting, and this book would most likely be best suited for OBGYNs, midwives, childbirth educators, doulas, or the mother that just loves to read anything pregnancy, birth, or parenting related (which is the category I fall into). I do not regret reading it in the least and it gave me a new perspective for what OBGYNs have to go through to become doctors, so I have more sympathy and understanding for them. But it doesn't excuse the ridiculous rites of passage they put women through, it just explains where they came from. But, just as I would suspect, the book concludes that most women go into a hospital birth fully expecting and welcoming those rituals...which is their business to choose.

This book offers really great insight into what happens when technology and pregnancy meet in American culture as well as to the responses to the American technocratic approach to childbirth. I really liked that she included doctor's perspectives, giving the reader a look at both sides of the coin. She explored not only women who felt victimized by their experiences in hospitals, but also women who felt empowered by the same experiences. To her shock, she found that more women actually feel safer and more comfortable with a highly technocratic birth and she examines why this might be.

The book was very insightful but I found some slow chapters in the middle of the book that seemed to result from saying the same things over and over. I also constantly found myself amazed at some of the experiences of women in hospitals and asking myself if this information is still relevant today considering this book was written in 1992 and a lot of her research was dated in the late 80s. Never the less, it is a great recent history of childbirth in American hospitals. The attitudes of the doctors and women interviewed for this work surely continue to reflect, in many ways, the attitudes still held today considering it wasn't THAT long ago.

I recommend this book to women who plan to have their baby in a hospital because I think that it will serve to inform and as a result empower. If you seek to stay in control of your body and the birth of your child, this book would offer much insight. For women who do not want to have their children in the hospital, well, this book will only confirm why you feel that way.