Review of Birth Books:  Part 2

 

So yesterday, I started my series of book reviews for birthing books.  Today’s book review is: Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth (2003) by Ina May Gaskin.  And with a name like Ina May, you just know it’s going to be crunchy!

 

So a little history about Ina May Gaskin:  she is one of the best known midwives in the US.  Her first book, Spiritual Midwifery (2002), is in its 4^th edition and has been credited with the rebirth of midwifery in the US.  She and her husband started an ‘intentional community’ (read: commune) called the Farm Community in Tennessee, which has been going strong for 30 years. 

 

Her book Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth has been called a much anticipated sequel to Spiritual Midwifery; it’s a guide for women who want an unmedicated childbirth, not just midwives.  

 

The first part of the book presents women’s birthing stories.  Some of them happened at the Farm, some in other places.  I imagine they are interesting, but to be honest, I only skimmed them. 

 

The second part of the book presents her philosophy of childbirth.  She starts with a very interesting chapter on the mind-body connection, arguing that women themselves control the rate at which their cervix dilates; fear can stop or reverse dilation whereas encouragement and relaxation can increase it.  I really like that concept.   But once one digs deeper, is she really arguing that if you’re taking a long time to dilate, it’s your fault? 

 

She also argues that women can experience “painless” births and that at least some women who have given birth at the Farm’s birthing center actually do not experience pain during labor.  Some women, she explains, have even experience an orgasm when they are pushing, a bonus she says is not available when a woman has been given an epidural.  (Should I make a comment now, or should I just keep reporting what the book says??)  OK. I can’t wait.  I have to admit that I’m a bit skeptical on these points. I have heard about the orgasm thing before.  But the painless birth?  My call is that there may be a great deal of pressure at the Farm and elsewhere to have an “extraordinary” birth, and what could be more extraordinary than reporting no pain during labor.  That’s like saying you don’t experience pain during a marathon.  Yes, you do.  You just may not classify it as such—it’s effort, fatigue, even ecstasy.  But most reasonable people are going to say:  Ow. 

 

I do think she makes a good point that birth pain is not the same as other forms of pain.  Birth pain is all too often interpreted through fear:  something bad is happening and you are in trouble.  She argues this pain should be reinterpreted as a pain leading to something good.  I fully buy into the argument that our beliefs and cognitions about what we are experience (is it pain, fear, joy, excitement?) have a profound effect on how we actually experience them (it IS pain, fear, joy, or excitement!).  Nonetheless, there is pain involved, and I am going to argue that it hurts. 

 

To be honest, most of the book is a moderate approach to an unmedicated childbirth.  Well, it’s as moderate as a book can be with pictures of smiling naked women and babies’ heads are hanging out of their vaginas.  I have to be honest that the picture on page 35 with an upside down baby’s face crying from between his mother’s legs kind of weebs me out.  Call me bourgeois, but it does. 

 

Ina May is big into giving birth in a relaxing, supportive environment.  (Here! Here!)  She’s a big proponent of squatting during the actual pushing part to let gravity help the process.  Fortunately, she encourages others to hold the mom while she squats.  I have to admit that for the most part this is a reasoned, reasonable book for women who want to know more about unmedicated childbirth.  It’s definitely crunchy, but if you’re reading a book by Ina May, I imagine you have to anticipate some crunch. 

 

However. 

 

Near the end of the book, she took a big turn to the left.  Granted this is only a small portion of the book, but it’s a big deviation from mainstream crunchy unmedicated childbirth.  It starts when Ina May comes out against episiotomies.  Fine.  Many doctors and midwives today are.  In fact, more and more mainstream medical research questions whether episiotomies do any good and in fact, argue that they actually may do harm.  OK!  I’m right there with ya, Ina May! 

 

But here is the turn:  she proposes women that can the prevent tearing altogether by…well….by…ahem…touching themselves as the baby’s head emerges.  Well, alrighty then!!!  Before I go any further, let me just say that I applaud women who are so comfortable with their bodies and their sexuality that they can give birth naked in a room surrounded by 5 or 6 people and still be able to touch themselves when the baby’s head emerges. 

 

I, however, am not going to be one of those people.  And I have to say, it does bug me a bit that Ina May says that if I am not able to consider employing this method or at least talking with my doctor about it, I should really go see The Vagina Monologues, implying of course that I am way too uptight.  (p. 256)

 

OK:  Guilty as charged.  My reason for this whole educational journey is that childbirth has been a natural process for millions and millions of years.  That’s why I think I can do this just like my foremothers have done.  Nonetheless, I just don’t think that throughout those millions of years, many of these women actually masturbated during the final moments of labor.  Or really, at many moments during the process of labor before that.  It just doesn’t seem reasonable.  Can you just imagine the look on everyone’s face if you decided to do employ that birthing option at just the right moment?  Yeah.  Still not worth it to me. 

 

So the final take on Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth:

High crunchiness in a mostly palatable moderate crunch package.  Really, it’s only that last section that veers way, way off the mainstream.  (at least to my uptight bourgeois self, as this book would imply)  I don’t think the birth stories add much to the experience for me.  And that only leaves the last half of the book with information relevant for what one should actually do during labor.  I’d rate this one higher than yesterday’s Thinking Woman’s Guide…  But I think there are better books out there.

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