By Kelly Jad'on

Almost twenty years ago I gave birth to my first child, a whopping 8 1/2lb boy. Fearful of childbirth pain, I’d signed up for an epidural. Though I felt like a cyborg, being hooked up to monitors and hospital equipment, I was pain free. That is, until the medication wore off and then I went into delivery cold turkey—full fledged anesthetic–free delivery! After this initial experience, I opted to birth my second child in a non-medicated delivery. During both baby’s arrivals, I was assisted by a wonderful midwife from a local OBGYN group.

Forward ahead to 2009. Today, American women have choices regarding their births. Talk show host Ricki Lake and film maker Abby Epstein have written a new book—Your Best Birth: Know All Your Options, Discover the Natural Choices, and Take Back the Birth Experience. These two women are celebrities, authors, and mothers who have researched and documented the American birthing experience. Contrary to other cultures, the American mother most often views her baby's birth as a day to be feared. “Fear,” the authors write, “stalls labor.” Their book offers women the ability to empower themselves and have control over their birthing experiences.

Your Best Birth covers:

Know Your Options: Where will you give birth? A birthing center, the hospital, or at home? This section initiates "at risk" discussions: diabetes, heart disease, older age (27% increase of babies born to women older than 35 since 1990), high blood pressure, HIV/AIDS, genital herpes, placenta previa, VBAC (no longer an option in many hospitals).

Putting Your Dream Team Together: Who will you use? The authors explain the variations and explode the myths on medical assistance from obstetricians, midwives, and doulas. (Without a doubt, I’d always use a midwife myself.) This section also speaks to those who have been sexually abused, and helps them navigate the birth experience to elicit a time of healing. Ricki Lake tells her own story, “When I was six or seven my parents hired someone to do work around the house. He sexually abused me. I never talked about it until I was in my early twenties. It was my secret.”

Interventions: The Slippery Slope: Will you sign up for that epidural, just in case? This section of Your Best Birth really informs the reader with the details—pros and cons—of the epidural, spinal block, inductions, pitocin (pit), electronic monitors, episiotomies (includes ways to avoid them), vacuums, forceps, cesarean sections (legitimate and unnecessary reasons explored), and the VBAC.

Take Back Your Birth: Focuses on The Bradley Method, birth classes, stalled labor, HypnoBirthing, after the birth procedures.

The Appendix of Your Best Birth gives the reader an idea of a birth plan and lists resources for the parents to be. Some of these questions incorporated here were not asked of me as a patient, nor did I have an understanding of what to truly expect before my first birth. What I did know is that most women made it through their deliveries, but many had been dissatisfied with the experience. For this reason, I highly recommend that Your Best Birth be read as a source of knowledge for the parents to be. Be informed. Ask questions.

Your Best Birth also includes celebrity birth stories from Laila Ali, Cindy Crawford, Kellie Martin, and Melissa Joan Hart. An excellent Foreword is written by Jacques Moritz, OB-GYN. The book is a complement to the film The Business of Being Born, also by Ricki Lake and Abby Epstein.

5 Stars

Book Review: Your Best Birth: Know All Your Options, Discover the Natural Choices, and Take Back the Birth Experience (Grand Central Pub-Wellness Central/ May 2009) by Ricki Lake and Abby Epstein

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