My mouth dropped when I read Jennifer Block's book, "Pushed:  The Painful Truth About Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care".  I expected a frank, well-researched,  truthful book on modern maternity care  from Marsden Wagner, a well-known obstetrician and birth activist who wrote "Born in the USA".  But an investigative book on maternity care in the US from a journalist?  Finally!

I was hooked by page fifteen of the introduction when  Block quotes a leading obstetrician who in 1989, in response to the then 25% cesarean rate at the time,  told the New York Times, "'I can't believe that 25 out of 100 women can't deliver a baby normally.'" Block says that neither could she and that is why she wrote this book.

As I read PUSHED I liked that Block is not a mother and yet was inspired to write this book. She 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 today in America. She gives a lot of attention to induction rates because, quite honestly, they are ridiculously high. And dangerous, Block points out. "A solid majority of women in America are receiving the induction drug Pitocin…" yet Block says, "Inducing tends to produce longer, more difficult, more painful labors in general, and it ups a woman's chances of a C-section by two to three times."  Pay attention, pregnant mothers, this is important information to know. Block's book examines topics like induction and other realities of giving birth today in what she says medical anthropologist Robbie Davis-Floyd calls a "technocratic" state of maternity care today.

Block is not afraid to call maternity care a business. She says time management issues combined with a "looming fear of lawsuits" increases pressure on doctors to intervene rather than wait for labor to unfold. Her examples of this throughout the book are chilling and her quote from an OB in New York that it's standard practice for an obstetrician to induce many patients when they're on call for their personal and professional convenience is gravely worrying ("That's our dirty secret!" he told Block). If you're pregnant and reading a statement like that I hope you'll stop and think what that means about your care. 

There are a lot of "stop and think" moments in this book.  One of my favorite that was said in various ways throughout the book is this: obstetricians are surgeons – they are great for high risk emergencies – but they are not trained in normal, low-risk birth.  Midwives, while still under siege in many US states, are the care-giver of choice for normal, low-risk birth. It's a simple equation that some countires, like The Netherlands and Scandianvia, get.  Jennifer Block's book pushes you to get it too.

Come read this book with our BOLD Book Club online this month and chat with Jennifer Block at the end of the month!

To join the BOLD Book Club click HERE.