The Official Lamaze Guide: Giving Birth with Confidence Book

Frightening, combative, and often factually inaccurate, this is less a helpful manual and more a piece of propaganda. Even approaching this book as someone who already agrees with its basic premise - that many US births are terribly impersonal and over-medicalized and that women need more options - I found the authors' tone and attitude extremely off-putting. "Natural childbirth" is used interchangeably with the phrase "normal childbirth," despite the obvious fact that, statistically, it is not. Women who choose inductions are painted as selfish prima-donnas whose impatience may bring about their child's untimely death. The circumcision section is laden with loaded phrases such as "Don't be fooled into believing your baby won't feel any pain." Hospitals are established quite clearly as The Enemy, and pharmacological pain relief options are barely even discussed, denying readers any chance to make an actually informed decision about the shape of their labor.

In short, the authors have taken the chance to write a helpful guide and squandered it on the creation of a manipulative polemic. This book was a waste of my time.