|| 4 ⭐️ ||

It was very interesting to learn about childbirth throughout history and across cultures, and just how our society’s modern, mainstream approach to birth came to be. 

A few chapters got into the dawn of men in obstetrics and certain tools used commonly in birth even today, and I found a lot of this information rather troubling and disturbing (due to the increased distress and risk that it adds to the natural process, especially when implemented out of preference—on the mom’s or birth team’s part—instead of need). There are some pretty graphic descriptions of what doctors and midwives used to do to extract a baby if the mother’s life was at risk, and it often involved the child passing away/even being killed, and/or the mother sustaining debilitating, life-long injury and trauma from this process.

Still, this book did an excellent job of covering different birthing practices and methods of pain management throughout history, common fads and beliefs that were held about birth and all it entails, postpartum traditions across cultures, and so on.

If this book taught me anything, it’s that birth, although miraculous and beautiful, is indeed a very wild and unpredictable thing. It’s great that we have hospitals there for emergencies—but the medical system today also has an incredibly flawed understanding when it comes to natural birth, and therefore giving birth in a hospital would never be my first choice.