Book Review: “Your Best Birth”

In 2007, Ricki Lake and filmmaker Abby Epstein came out with a documentary about the unnatural state of childbirth in America called “The Business of Being Born.” Now they have a book, “Your Best Birth: Know All Your Options, Discover the Natural Choices, and Take Back the Birth Experience.”

I have not seen the Ricki Lake childbirth movie. I’ve never even seen “Hairspray.” But they had this book at the library, and despite my suspiscions, it’s the baby book I’ve read most carefully so far.

“Your Best Birth” has an agenda, a palpable one: get the reader to question the current system of hospital births. Why are so many babies born by C-section? How I assert more control over how my child is brought into the world? Could it be more natural, or more comfortable for everyone involved?

So “Your Best Birth” lays down all of your birthing options, and illustrates all types of birthing scenarios with that labor stories of famous people and regular people.  An savvy reader would take these things and use them to help her make informed decisoins about her birthing plan.

But this book also made me pretty angry at the whole system…the “business of being born,” if you will. Of course in America we have babies the most assbackwards (and expensive) way. I tried to keep my wits about me as I read so that I would not fall into a trance of anti-establishment rhetoric. 

Would Vic and I prefer to have a home delivery with a midwife? Hell yes, but we can’t afford it. And that’s one thing not addressed by the book. Over and over again the authors tell you to find another hospital or doctor if the one you are dealing with won’t take your requests seriously.

But I have Kaiser, and though they probably do have some options for a mother, the insurance plan does not cover midwives or doulas or at-home births. This means we’ll have to fend for ourselves in a gigantic Kaiser hospital. I’ll stick up for what we want (no epidural, limited electroic monitoring through the labor, no episiotomy, no yanking the baby away bore I get to bond and nurse), but we’ll also have to settle for what we get. 

Had I no insurance and we’d have to pay out-of-pocket, probably we would do a home delivery. I think it would be life-changing less AND expensive  than a hospital delivery. But with my fairly awesome Kaiser plan, we won’t have many out-of-pocket birthing expenses, so that’s that. We can’t afford to splurge on a dream birth when a safe, will-do-but-not-dream birth is available for more or less free. Were we a couple who runs in the well-funded circles that Ricki Lake runs in, I’m sure we could be more choosy.

My best friend is the kind of person who wants to do things by the book. Her two lovely children were born in the most status quo manner possible, which my best friend finds reassuring. That’s what she wanted in her labor, which is all well and good. If you feel the same, ”Your Best Birth” will probably piss you off and land in the trash can.

But for a person like me, this book will be very helpful–invaluable, in fact. It’s pointed me in the direction to talk to women I trust about their deliveries so that I can glean wisdom from them and decide what will be best for me. I’m not swallowing the book whole. You have to cherry-pick what you think will be helpful in your situation. And in ours, we don’t have too many choices: it more or less has to be a hospital birth, which whatever Kaiser doctor on call happens to show up. But we can still assert our desires. After all, who’s having this baby? Not the nurses or the doctor. That’s the biggest thing I got from this book: your birth is YOURS. Don’t be afraid to express what you really want. 

July 27, 2009. Tags: books, childbirth, insurance. Book REviews.