HW#40: Insights from Book Part 3

You find yourself at a cocktail party with the author of the book you just finished reading. To demonstrate that you really read it, you say, "Hey - thanks for writing "Born in the USA: How a Broken Maternity System myst be Fixed to put Women and Children First". Your main idea, explaining the dangers of the maternity care system in the USA and your solutions to those problems made me rethink about pregnancy & birth."

But the author, surprised to be talking to someone who instead of sharing their own birth story actually rephrased the main idea of the text he spent months giving birth to asks, "Really, which parts were most effective or important for you?" When you answer, "Well, in the last third of the book you focused on the actual solutions and alternative ways of improving the broken maternity system we have in the U.S, which further developed the first 2/3rds of the book. But let me be more specific." And then you listed the top 3 ideas/pieces of evidence/insights/questions from that final third of the book (and somehow even listed page number references).
1. Communication between Obstetricians and midwives are essential. (page 206)
2. Litigation helps protects women, letting them speak out if they know their childbirth process was unnecessary and dangerous. (page 225)
3. Women should be able to choose their care provider, their birth place, and have her own birth plan that will be carried out even in hospitals. (page 248)

At this point, realizing that he's having a unique conversation with a serious reader of his book, the author asks - "But what could I have done to make this a better book - that would more effectively fulfill its mission?" You answer, "Well, let's be clear - your text sought to provide narratives, historical analysis, journalistic analysis, and policy analysis from the perspective of both mothers whose choices are limited in giving birth and the obstetricians for the book-reading-public to better understand pregnancy & birth in our culture. Given that aim, and your book, the best advice I would give for a 2nd edition of the text would be, to actually find obstetricians who can speak more in depth about their ignorance on the normal birth process. But I don't want you to feel like I'm criticizing. I appreciate the immense amount of labor you dedicated to this important issue and particularly for making me think about how our society depends on Obstetricians without questioning their medical and unnecessary interventions & the reasons why OBGYN's use these inerventions (because of fear of litigation and ignorance of seeing childbirth as a natural process. In fact, I'm likely to consider home birth and look up actual data to make sure Obstetricians aren't putting myself and a potential child at risk if I do give birth in a hospital as a result of your book." The author replies, "Thanks! Talking to you gives me hope about our future as a society!"