Picture this: You’re about halfway through your pregnancy and a friend mentions that her husband caught her baby. The doctor just stood there, and coached the hubby along. “What?” you’re thinking to yourself. “I didn’t know that husbands/partners were allowed to catch the baby!”

Women today have more choices than ever in deciding how and where to birth a baby. The Birth Book reflects on those choices, summing up the motto of the International Childbirth Education Association: “Freedom of choice through knowledge of alternatives.”

When I come across someone who is planning for an epidural to be inserted as soon as she feels the slightest contraction, I know this book is for her. The Birth Book is perhaps the most neutral of all birth books, yet by reading it, the reader comes away thinking, “Well, maybe I ought to explore my choices a bit further.”

Dr. William and Martha Sears have a wide variety of experiences in birthing their children and they start off by sharing the stories surrounding the births of their eight children: seven borne from both of them and one adopted child whose birth they attended. Their first three children were born in the hospital, the rest were born at home. Their sixth baby was an unattended birth--Dr. Sears welcomed his son into the world as he was born into his arms.

The Birth Book makes a comparison of birth prior to the 1900’s all the way up to births today. This is something that is rarely touched upon in other “mainstream” birth books. This sense of history helps us understand how modern obstetrics came to be the way it is and how women can empower themselves to take birth back into their own hands.

The Sears cover all the interventions that are associated with birth today, but the facts are presented in a calm, straightforward manner. Remember, choice is an important factor. Pros and cons are listed, myths are explained and facts are backed by research. What other “mainstream” book is going to touch on the variations of normal birth, such as breech birth, and not provide the standard copout of “check with your doctor.” The Birth Book recognizes that women have enough common sense to evaluate all the information and plan a birth accordingly.

Another nice aspect is a detailed chapter on vaginal birth after cesarean. Most mainstream books deal with VBAC as if it's a high risk case for every mom. The Sears provide advice in a question and answer format and provide an inspirational story at the end of the chapter.

What disappoints me about this book is the glaring lack of photos or illustrations of women giving birth. The only illustration that shows a baby coming out with a full frontal view is the one demonstrating the use of forceps. There are other illustrations of labor positions and positions of the baby, but that's it. This is a how-to manual, it's a shame that there aren't pictures to refer to.


What I like most about this book is that it touches on the many aspects of birth that are holistic-- taking in account that birth is multi-dimensional and that not everyone fits neatly into the “trudge off to the hospital, the doctor is god” paradigm. There’s lots of information about midwifery and homebirths, as well as information on how to have a hospital birth that is woman-directed instead of a birth dictated by hospital personnel. There are women who couldn’t care less about choices in childbirth and would rather hand it over to whatever doctor is listed in their insurance book. In that case, I doubt ANY childbirth book would be of any value.



Recommended: Yes