Can you tell where my mind has been lately? CLEARLY not on reading, since I haven't read at all and the only books I have been reading are about babies. I feel kind of guilty about neglecting my favorite hobby lately! But I'm not worrying too much because I know I'll be right back into it pretty soon. I pretty randomly picked this book at the library--I was wanting to check out some books about childbirth and breastfeeding and stuff (since we haven't done any classes or anything this time around, and I feel like I've forgotten it all) and this ended up in the stack. And it's the only one of those that I've actually made it through! I really enjoyed it for several reasons: Lyerly, an OB and professor in Chapel Hill, is writing about her large-scale qualitative study where she interviewed lots of women about their birth experiences and the conclusions that she has drawn from those interviews--and I do so love good old qualitative research studies. I really, really liked how she organized the study and how she presented her findings of what trends ran through all the women's birth experiences and their interviews. The other thing I really liked about this was that Lyerly's express purpose is to try and provide value to ALL types of birth and birth experiences instead of trying to preach about one side of the argument being better than others. I feel like so many books and places are so overtly pro-natural birth that there is a little bit of a stigma (depending on who you're talking to, of course) of using any sort of drugs or epidural, and a huge stigma towards C-sections, especially elective C-sections. I know that I would personally have a really hard time being told I had to have a C-section, probably in part because of what I've read from that camp. But Lyerly is trying to show, through her data and interviews, that C-sections can be just as positive and meaningful of experiences for patients, and that they are still just as important and valuable as so-called "natural" births. She talks about all of the different aspects of giving birth that can make the experience positive or negative, mostly all different aspects of the mother having control over the situation. It's important that the mom has agency, personal security, connectedness with others in and out of the room, respect, and knowledge about what's going on. And she peppers each of these sections with lots and lots of birth stories and comments from the moms she interviewed, and from her own personal experience (as a mom of four herself).
All in all, I loved the angle Lyerly took in this book. I feel like it was valuable for me in just opening my mind to the fact that even if having this baby doesn't go as planned--which means for me that we'll get to the hospital in time (I'm so afraid of the baby coming too fast!) and that I'll be able to get an epidural or at least that it won't hurt too bad; not much else matters--I'll still be able to look at things in a positive way and have good feelings about the experience.
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