From Publishers Weekly
A thoroughly modern midwife, Armstrong attends home births among the Amish of Pennsylvania's Lancaster County equipped with a just-in-case array of instruments and drugs, oxygen and a two-way radio. Here, with writer Feldman (they also coauthored A Midwife's Story ), she considers childbirth in and out of America, arguing that high technology has adversely overwhelmed the birth process. Reviewing the pre-antisepsis history of childbirth, Armstrong and Feldman acknowledge the life-saving contributions of medicine and leading physicians; they decry the militant hostility of some midwives to the medical establishment. Yet, they suggest, the cacophonous, officious hospital setting has joined forces with the crisis- and intervention-oriented training of today's obstetricians to turn even the lowest-risk, least complicated delivery into an unnatural act--one healthful for neither mother nor child. Armstrong and Feldman are impassioned, persuasive advocates of the homelike birth center (with a hospital nearby in case of trouble), where deliveries can proceed at nature's pace with minimal interference; they include a number of moving testimonials to the wisdom of that course. Their thoughtful and well-written book should be read by any and all prospective parents. Author tour.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Technology (drugs, surgery) has estranged women from their bodies and the experience of natural childbirth, say the authors of this book. Women have been increasingly denied ownership of the birth process, giving it over to traditionally trained medical professionals (predominantly males). Armstrong, a midwife, and Feldman, a medical writer, discuss how this has come to pass, what the consequences have been, and how things are changing. Although the authors are sometimes overzealous in stating their case, for the most part they provide a fair and balanced treatment of the subject. This is a valuable book for anyone interested in alternative approaches to modern birthing practices. Another book with the same message is Marion McCartney and Antonia Van Der Meer's The Midwife's Pregnancy and Childbirth Book: Having Your Baby Your Way (LJ 4/15/90); smaller libraries that already have that book probably won't need this one.
- Kathleen L. Atwood, Pomfret Sch. Lib., Ct.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
- Kathleen L. Atwood, Pomfret Sch. Lib., Ct.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
