Challenge: Medical Book
I found this on Good Reads medical book list. No interesting story to tell about that.
It is 1981 and Sybil Danforth is a midwife who performs home
births. One of these goes terribly wrong
and Sybil performs a c-section on her patient, Charlotte Bedford, who is dead
so that the baby will be saved. However,
was Charlotte dead when the c-section was performed or did Sybil kill her when
she performed it? Soon Sybil and the
entire midwife community/ home births by association are put on trial.
The idea of the story in this book was really interesting and
got me going. Since reading it, I have
had passionate discourses on home births with anyone who would listen. I won’t give away the ending but at first I
was thinking, if these women want to have their babies at home, fine. NMS but ok, do what you want. And then I started to see the other side and
I began to think, why would a woman want to have a baby at home with a
non-school trained midwife when there are hospitals and nurses and medically
trained midwives available? It seems
kind of reckless when so much can happen in a birth which may cause the mother
or the baby to die. Why be risky like
that when you do not have to? It almost seems
a little selfish on the part of the mother to choose this. (Fortunately, I don’t think many people read
this blog so I am hoping I won’t be inundated by comments from home birth ladies (and maybe some men) about how it’s the right choice and to watch The Business of Being Born.)
Side note: This book
has reaffirmed my hatred of the verb use of the word “birth” as in “I birthed
him”. Gag. And it has also reaffirmed that I am not a suffering
through childbirth is nature’s way to embrace my womanhood kind of girl. But you probably caught on to that by now.
PS I realize this isn’t really a review of the book per se
so last but not least, I would recommend, it was a page turner.
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