Postpartum Reading List

 ***Very Important Announcement***

Tomorrow (April 30) I will be posting an amazing giveaway related to one of these books where everyone who participates receives a prize. It will only last for 24 hours, so be sure to come back tomorrow for details!

During the week and a half that my mom was helping out, I read three books. I thought I'd read more, but I spent a lot of time working on Ivy's birth story and video.


When I was just 2 days postpartum, I read an advance review copy of Roanna Rosewood's Cut, Stapled, and Mended: When One Woman Reclaimed Her Body and Gave Birth on Her Own Terms After Cesarean. This book is hot off the press--I think it was released 2 days ago!

It was a powerful read. In short, it was the story of her three children's births, the first two by cesarean and the third by VBAC. But it was really a book about finding herself and coming into her power as a woman. And her journey to VBAC wasn't a simple one. Her first two cesareans both began as planned home births. She worked SO hard to birth her babies vaginally. There are no simple answers to why she needed surgery the first two times and why she didn't the last time. I love her story because it doesn't give easy answers or make simplistic pronouncements about needing to "trust birth." It's raw and real and doesn't have all the answers.

You'll remember Roanna from Panel 3 of the Human Rights in Childbirth Conference and from her eloquent address "Who has the right to speak for the baby?". Here she is speaking at the HRCC conference:



Cut, Stapled, and Mended: $12.36 on Amazon


Next was The Midwife's Tale: A Mystery by Sam Thomas. Definitely a fun read! You can learn more about the book and the author at this blog post or on his website.

The Midwife's Tale: $12.98 (paperback) and $16.97 (hardcover)


Last was Jennifer Margulis' expose of the baby industry (from conception to birth to the first year of the baby's life): The Business of Baby: What Doctors Don't Tell You, What Corporations Try to Sell You, and How to Put Your Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Baby Before Their Bottom Line.

 

Written to be an eye-opener (and a bit of a jeremiad), Margulis' book examines how financial interests often undermine the health and well-being of mothers and babies. Some of the chapters were familiar, but others were new to me. Margulis blends investigative journalism with fascinating anecdotes and stories. Sometimes I felt the book was a bit too heavily weighted towards anecdote, but she's also trying to tell a good story as much as she is presenting facts and research.

The Business of Baby: $16.46 on Amazon