BOOK REVIEW || Birth: The Surprising History of How We Are Born by Tina Cassidy

This book is incredible. Tina Cassidy offers a stunningly new perspective on the evolution of healthcare, and with that, the birthing process. This book chronologically depicts how women's bodies have changed; how the interpretation and reputation of childbirth has changed and is still changing in countries all over the world; how the institution of medicine and hospitals emerged from days of home care and home births to heavily institutionalized and recently, to somewhere in between. She takes you on this global journey through time while you sneak preview the remarkable, inspiring, frightening and sometimes terrifying realities of people's lives - women's lives - as they (we) continue to give birth...each time influenced by new research and policies and supported by different resources and establishments.

Some of the procedures used during childbirth several decades ago here in North America are hard to imagine. "Twilight sleep" was one of these shocking discoveries that emerged in the early 1900's as part of a feminist movement to end all suffering in childbirth. In the early stages of labour, doctors would administer injections of morphine combined with the amnesiac scopolamine until the woman's short-term memory was far mere minutes. Her eyes were bandaged, ears stuffed with cotton and arms strapped down to ensure a blissful snooze for the entirety of the labour and birth. Amazingly, women from all over the world aspired to do this and Twilight Sleep became a symbol of women's new found freedom and power. It became the norm. Some doctors, who loved their minimal involvement in the process, actually made it mandatory. Twilight Sleep continued into the 1970's.

Being careful not to "believe everything I read", I asked my 94 year old grandmother about the birth of her first child. Her response went something like this, "Now let me see...I do recall being in some pain, yes....but it didn't last long at all. No. Eventually, I knew Jen had been born because I heard a baby crying. I think they may have showed her to me, but I don't quite remember that too well. I didn't hold her for a couple days." To her, that was normal - who am I to judge?

From a woman who has been a journalist for years, this book is not just another birth book. It is not a birth book at all. It's a book about the history of how we are born. It's a historical non-fiction and a remarkable insight into the evolution and interconnection of the human body, society, science and medicine.

You can read more about "Birth" and Tina Cassidy here: http://tinacassidy.info/. Until today, I hadn't realised that she has a like-minded blog called "The Birth Book Blog" (www.tinacassidy.blogspot.com), which I've also posted in the Menstrual Madness list of links.