Cesarean Section: Understanding and Celebrating Your Baby's Birth

In November, 2004, my wife and I had our first baby. We were told in October that the baby would need to be born by a cesarean and we were terrified. Fortunately, a friend recommended this book and it gave us all the information that we needed and did this in a non-scary way. I wish we had read it earlier in the pregnancy so that we would have been better prepared for the things that can happen. Our baby is healthy and beautiful and we are very happy that all went well.

I am the mum on the cover. I was approached to have the photos when I was due with my 3rd child. If I had this book when I had my first child I would have been more prepared for the let down I suffered from not being able to deliver my child naturally. I feel that this should be part of any childbirth class. Too little focus is put on C-Sections. Being unprepared for them is a very daunting experience that I would hate for anyone to go through. By the way, baby and mother are doing fine here down under.

I found this book really good and helpful. I read it overseas when I was about to try for a vaginal birth after my first Csection (VBAC) The authors explained everything that was involved and how the main thing is to have a healthy baby, that was very reassuring. In the end I had another C but felt I had done my best. It is full of information about going home after a C, how to cope, getting over the surgery that I wished I had known the first time, and it does talk about painful scars. I recommend it to anyone who has had or might have a Csection. Queenie

This is a very good book with an excellent examination of the whys and hows of C-sections. I'm recommending this one for the library at my birth center because it's very helpful in presenting medical information to a layman audience without talking down to them, and it even helped me understand my medical record. While I believe my C was necessary for the health of the child (whether or not I should have been induced is another issue) and I did not have any depression about it, I really liked that the authors want people to understand what happened to them and to hopefully receive some peace about having had a C if they have feelings of failure.

You couldn't ask for a better look at "surgical birth", as the authors call it. While this is quite a thin book, it adequately covers everything an expectant mother needs to know. Chapters include "Why are Cesarean Sections Performed?", "A Brief History of Cesarean Section", "What Happens in Cesarean Section and Who Performs the Surgery", "Considering the Risks of Cesarean Section" as well as discussions of recovery, postpartum depression, and contraception choices. This book takes the hype and argument out of C-sections. I've read several of the "big" books of childbirth, and none of them covered Cesareans as completely and honestly as this one.