[.ca] Pushed: The Painful Truth About Childbirth and Modern ... (ISBN 0738210730)

Important and valuable book:
This is not a book which offers practical advice to expectant mothers. It might not even be a good book to read while you are pregnant - too scary, and too infuriating! It deals with the way maternity care is managed (mainly in the U.S.), the fact that most procedures offered to labouring women have no basis in medical research, that many are either useless or harmful. Block backs up her statements fully. She is openly angry about the fact that women are not only receiving inappropriate, sometimes dangerous, care in childbirth, but are being forced to accept procedures without their consent. Some of the most fascinating chapters describe the efforts several individuals go through in an attempt to work with, or around, the medical system and get the birth they want, some of them resorting to giving birth unattended at home rather than submit to what they see as unnecessary surgery. Jennifer Block sees this as a reproductive rights issue, and urges women's organizations to adopt issues like forced Cesareans, lack of informed consent for obstetric procedures, and the lengths women are forced to go to in order to receive adequate care in childbirth, and treat them as what they are: women's rights issues. It is a book that very much needed to be written.