Hey Dr. Marsden Wagner, thanks for writing your extremely informative book Born in the USA. Your ideas about how obstetricians are not necessarily the right specialists to be dealing with healthy, routine childbirths really caused me to look at the processes of pregnancy and birth in a completely different way. All my life up until I started reading this book, I was under the impression that people had to give birth in the hospital. The only story I had ever heard about a home birth was that of the sister of one of my friends, who was born on her couch at home. At the time, that story was the oddest thing, and extremely hard to grasp. Now that you have provided me with the facts, my perspective has completely changed.
My favorite part about the last third of your book was the way it was able to connect the first points relating to the differences between midwives and obstetricians to the overarching issue of the flawed American system of childbirth today. For example, you immediately started this last section off by saying, "We Americans are consumed with the need to believe that we are number one. But here's a wrenching fact: forty-one countries have better infant mortality rates than the United States does." (Wagner, 212) The second thing that you said which I particularly enjoyed was how one of the most important solutions to this flawed American birthing system was to educate the public, "It is crucial to the movement for humanizing birth that the American public understand childbirth, midwifery, and the present abuses in our maternity care system." (Wagner, 220) Finally, I thought that the way you stressed the importance of taking necessary political action to solve this issue was great, especially when you said, "Another political battle is fought in the land of insurance companies. ABC's need insurance, but some insurance companies decline to do business with them or charge higher premiums to physicians who provide backup services to ABC's. As a result, ABC's are being squeezed from both directions. (Wagner, 228)
It seemed that your main purpose in writing this book was to inform the public of the current issues that the American birthing system has, and also to describe the reasons that these issues exist as well as suggest possible solutions toward the end. In my personal opinion, you did a stupendous job accomplishing all of these goals. If you were interested in writing a second edition, however, there is one suggestion that I might make. This text seems to be designed to educate mostly adults, or young adults at the least. One way to make sure that everyone is able to comprehend all of the extremely important information that you have displayed in your book would be to have a second edition that is aimed at a slightly younger audience, for ages about 13-17. There are a huge number of young teen girls getting pregnant, and it would be a shame if they were not able to make a well-educated decision on where to give birth simply because they did not have the necessary reading skills or patience to be able to understand the valuable information that you are trying to get across. However, as far as suggestions go for your current book, Born in the USA, I don't believe I can give you any. You did a stellar job incorporating your own message and at the same time, being able to support your ideas with well-cited evidence. While reading your book, I was constantly thinking about the decision of whether to have a midwife supervise birth or to be admitted to a standard hospital to be taken care of obstetricians, and which type of people would prefer each choice. I know for a fact that I will take this information with me no matter what decision I choose to make later in life regarding childbirth, and I appreciate all the time and effort you put in to creating this amazing book.
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