Pushed: The Painful Truth About Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care

Features

• Cover Type: Hard Cover with 336 pages
• Published by: Da Capo Lifelong Books June 1, 2007
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0738210730
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0738210735
• Book Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Weighs: 1.2 pounds

From Publishers Weekly
According to writer and editor Block (Our Bodies, Ourselves), "the United States has the most intense and widespread medical management of birth" in the world, and yet "ranks near the bottom among industrialized countries in maternal and infant mortality." Block shows how, in transforming childbirth into a business, hospitals have turned "procedures and devices developed for the treatment of abnormality" into routine practice, performed for no reason than "speeding up and ordering an unpredictableprocess"; for instance, the U.S. cesarean section rate tripled in the 1970s, and has doubled since then. Block looks into a growing contingent of parents-to-be exploring alternatives to the hospital-and the attendant likelihood of medical intervention-by seeking out birthing centers and options for home-birth. Unfortunately, obstacles to these alternatives remain considerable-laws across the U.S. criminalizing or severely restricting the practice of midwifery have led the trained care providers to practice underground in many states-while tort reform has done next to nothing to lower malpractice insurance rates or improve hospital birthing policies. This provocative, highly readable expose raises questions of great consequence for anyone planning to have a baby in U.S., as well as those interested or involved in women's health care.
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Product Review
"A gripping expose Provocative and hotly controversial analysis of a side of reproductive rights feminism seems to have forgot." -- Kirkus Reviews, (Starred Review) 5/15/07

"A stirring discussion of reproductive rights, informed consent, and the rights of the mother vs. the fetus Recommended." -- Library Journal, 5/15/07

"The book is loaded with interviews, statistics andsome quietly deft storytelling." -- Chicago Reader, 6/29/07

"This is a worthwhile book for anyone who cares about reforming our health-care system--right from the start." -- Kansas City Star, 10/02/07

"[Block] really gets that maternity care is a woman's issue that all people should care about, not just mothers, and she has no agenda through a birth experience or professional work in maternity care. Pushed shines a spotlight on maternity care and asks important questions about the standard practices in America." -- BOLD Book Club, October 2007

Reader Reviews
Exactly 3 years ago I walked into one of the finest maternity hospitals in NJ to deliver my first baby. I was low risk - under 30, no complications - and was expected to have a smooth delivery. 11 hours later I was laying in a bed by myself staring at a ceiling, completely shell shocked, and without my baby, husband or family, I was immobilized in a recovery room with a gaping wound in my belly while my new daughter was off in the nursery. I had no idea what went wrong. It seemed that I had simply stopped dilating or "failed to progress." As I read Jennifer Block's book, I just nodded as it all became very clear - the insistence by the staff that we would just hurry things up a little by performing an amniotomy (breaking my water) when I was still in early labor. That was followed by pitocin (to "really" get things moving), stadol (a narcotic pain reliever), an epidural and finally, a c-section. My labor was simply one of many completely over-managed and over controlled labors in American hospitals. They finally decided that a c-section was the only way to end my labor. I was lead to believe my labor was a "problem" and a "complication" and surgery was the only answer. I wish this book could become mandatory reading for all women who are planning a hospital delivery. Contrary to recent reports (as discussed in this book), very few women are actually requesting a c-section on a completely voluntary basis. Years ago I was "pushed" by the obstetrical community into an unwanted delivery experience. Today I am pregnant with my second child. And I am pushing back.