I am pregnant and want a home birth using hypnosis, both of which this author is very enthusiastic about. I was looking forward to a positive, informative book about the wonders and benefits of natural birth, and instead was treated to the longest rambling rant I've ever had the displeasure of reading. I'll admit, I only made it to page 178 before I gave up. The entire first section was this stream of consciousness explosion of raving against OBs, parents who smoke, women who work after their children are born, and this imaginary and yet (in her opinion) large portion of women who schedule unnecessary C-sections so they can plan the day their baby will be born.
The problem isn't that what she says is untrue, it's just that she says is in such a bitter, angry judgmental way. For example, on page 149 there is a section called Skillful Midwifery. I thought, "Finally, a break in the invective for a calm, peaceful positive section on midwives and the many benefits they offer." Well, that was less than a page long. Then she spent 2 pages setting up a scenario with a mother-to-be who smokes and lies about it to the nmidwife and also lies about seeing a traditional OB, and when the midwife drops her a as a client she ends up delivering in a hospital with major complications. Then, the doctors in the community ostracize the midwife, refusing to give her any medical care when she is in need of it. It's just a paranoid, self-serving horrible story, and such a disappointment when I wanted to read something nice for a change.
The author is just so snippy and superior. The book starts out not with a wonderful peaceful explanation of a good birthing experience, but with dictionary definitions of the words like "biased" and "judgmental" (and I mean actual copied dictionary definitions, like we never graduated from gradeschool) and a lengthy explanation of why she isn't any of those things. Defensive much?!? I'm clearly not the first person to think this way about her. She calls women who prefer hospital births "sad" (page 169) - I mean really, I learned not to call people names in kindergarden. She is pulling people onto the guilt train, making them feel inferior if they aren't like her and ridiculing others. It was just so unpleasant to read.
There are so many positive birth books out there that say the same things but in a nice, non-insulting way, please read one of them instead! Try Birth without violence by Frederick Leboyer. And also, try the HypnoBabies self-hypnosis course, it takes a wonderful, gentle and peaceful approach to childbirth education.
PS. On a more picky note, she repeats herself constantly. For example, she has quotes in boxes off to the side, and quotes the same traditional Iriquois nation saying 3 times (possibly more, as I said I didn't finish the book). There are typos and grammatical errors as well. She needs a good editor.