Book review

Article Outline

• Copyright

The Australian Pregnant Book is a comprehensive guide to the contemporary medical model of managing pregnancy and birth under the care of an Obstetrician. It covers a full range of topics from pre conception care, conception, pregnancy, childbirth, and the post-natal period, followed by an informative final chapter of “frequently asked questions”. This book is well presented, easy to understand and contains excellent medical illustrations and images. The front cover promises to provide “Medical Answers to Frequently Asked Questions” and certainly in regards to all things medical that surround pregnancy and birth this book is thorough yet concise. The book succeeds in clearly articulating the “medicine” of pregnancy and birth, but it begs the question; is this really the most important and appropriate information to prepare all women for positive birth outcomes for themselves and their babies?

This book is aimed primarily at pregnant woman and probably more so woman having their first child. According to Dr Thompson this book was written in response to the many requests form couples in his practice seeking more detailed medical information than what is found in other pregnancy books. However, the question that needs to be asked is; does such information empower the reader so that they are able to navigate all the medical issues that relate to pregnancy and birth, or does it reinforce the idea that pregnancy and childbirth are somehow flawed and that medical interventions are usually necessary and provide better health outcomes? Unfortunately, I suspect it may achieve more of the latter.

Dr Thompson concludes that childbirth has not changed since the start of humankind but points to Western lifestyle along with the trend towards delayed childbearing as having an impact upon fertility and pregnancy & birth outcomes. Whilst I agree that the health of a woman's body is important, I do not believe that these factors alone justify the fear culture that seems to surround childbirth, or explain the extremely high intervention and caesarean rates that we have within Australia.

Whilst this book contains good technical information it is based on the premise that pregnancy and childbirth are essentially medical events with many risks that require close monitoring and active medical management. This is not surprising given the author is an Obstetrician, whose job it is to manage risks and complications. Medical management of pregnancy and childbirth is based upon the assumption that complications often arise and if all the boxes are not checked for a woman to fit inside a predetermined idea of “normal”, then further testing, monitoring and intervention becomes necessary. This book is full of such examples and it begs the question how many pregnancies/births are ever actually regarded as “normal” and treated as such. It would seem there is a test or graph to measure just about every aspect of pregnancy and birth and certainly as a woman who has birthed two babies I am sure there are many more useful things that caregivers could do instead of plotting labour progress on graphs!

In my opinion, The Australian Pregnant book reflects the current status of the medicalisation of birth where a plethora of tests, scans, growth charts, monitoring, and interventions are regarded as routine and necessary. Whether I philosophically agree or not, this book is likely to have mainstream appeal because of the insight it provides into the predominant model of prenatal care within Australia. Would I recommend this to a pregnant women – Yes if she has chosen hospital birth and wants to gain some insight into how her care is likely to be “managed” BUT for women and partners truly wanting to gain a holistic understanding about birth, I would recommend they seek out works by authors such as Dr Michel Odent and Dr Sarah J Buckley and discover how natural and wondrous birth really is.