Review by Booklist Review
Ob/gyn Lyerly kept an open mind when she worked at Duke and then at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on her Good Birth Project in-depth talks with 101 mothers about their experiences delivering 196 infants in homes, hospitals, and birth centers. When it comes to the birth wars over where and how babies should be born, she doesn't take sides. Doctors and midwives should connect with their patients, put moms and babies together quickly, speak with care, avoid treating birth as just a medical event, and make sure women who need C-sections don't feel they're failures. Birthing is birthing however you do it, writes the empathetic Lyerly, who experienced four such surgeries, four births, as a patient and mother. No mama guilt allowed! Some women may feel more present at a birth if they get epidurals to relieve the pain; others want a completely natural birth. And both are OK. Lyerly aims to make doctors, moms, and moms-to-be feel less judgmental about other people's choices and more empowered when it comes to their own.--Springen, Karen Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In 2006, Lyerly began the Good Birth Project, a landmark research study that asks the question: "What constitutes a good birth in the eyes of the childbearing women?" Her research team conducted interviews with 101 mothers about their birth experiences, and the results of that study serve as the basis for this insightful book: "an effort to craft a notion of the good birth that turns... on what women say is deeply at issue for them." While the book is aimed at mothers and soon-to-be-mothers, Lyerly also has an important message for the medical community, midwives, and other birth advocates who are in the middle of an important but polarizing debate ("medical" vs. "natural" childbirth), in which "women lose." Lyerly admits that "no doubt there is and will likely continue to be some degree of tension between obstetrics and midwifery," but she attempts to make a place in the conversation for women's voices. Those on the side of midwifery may yet dismiss Lyerly as a medically trained and practicing obstetrician and the mother of four children who were all born by cesarean. But she also notes that "every women does deserves a midwife," or rather, the kind of care that treats childbirth as a profoundly emotional and transitional experience, and that respectfully fosters a mother's agency, personal security, and connectedness. Agent: Gail Ross, Ross Yoon Agency. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
An obstetrician and mother of four (all by cesarean) reveals the myriad ways women can feel empowered by pregnancy. That Lyerly (Obstetrics and Gynecology/Univ. of North Carolina) managed to compose this astute guide amid the first year of her fourth son's life seems an accomplishment on its own. In "giving voice to women themselves," she demonstrates how new outlooks on the process of birthing can surface. The author directly yet compassionately addresses the issues surrounding what constitute an unconstrained "good" birth and the primary goals associated with it. Besides preserving a healthy mother and child, Lyerly petitions to broaden the good-birth concept beyond that of a positive medical outcome. She writes that although the experience gained from her medical residency and obstetrics practice have helped to enhance her perception of what the optimal delivery can be, it was the groundbreaking three-year Good Birth Project, instituted at Duke University in 2006, which solidified her research. Culling hours of interviews with 100 pregnant women, midwives and maternity-care providers, Lyerly channels the fruits of these conversations (and her own personal anecdotes) into five thematic "domains"--what she found mattered most to expectant women: agency (the capacity to act on one's own behalf), personal security, connectedness through adult-infant bonding and beyond, respect and essential knowledge. Throughout, the author's focus is clear, and her unobtrusive approach succeeds in showcasing women with alternative pathways to handling, accepting and loving all aspects of the pregnancy and child-birthing processes. "What is needed in birth is not always intuitive or straightforwardly derived from other of life's lessons," she writes. Her comforting and informational guidebook will be useful for those seeking to explore the less-obvious components of parturition. Positive, sympathetic and diverse perspectives for past, present and future mothers-to-be.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
