Hey! You’re Tina Cassidy right? Oh my god! I can’t believe it’s actually you! Thanks for writing Birth: The Surprising History of How We Are Born. Your entire book supported the argument that home birth or birth at a birthing center is a much better alternative than hospital birth which made me decide where I would want my child to be born. My SAT tutor made fun me when I told him my history class about birth but when I explained to him how intricate your book is how you take the reader through a journey depicting how society has stigmatized birth to be something like a disease instead of a miraculous and beautiful part of life. It surprised me that there are so many things about birth that I did not know prior to reading your book.
"Really, which parts were most effective or important for you?"
The duties of the father chapter, which started on page 198 I believe, was simply fabulous. It gave me a proper idea as to what I can do when I am a father. The part I found most interesting was about how the role some fathers play can affect how painless the birthing process can be for the mother and the child. Just being there for emotional support can mean so much more to the mother than when the father just sits in the waiting room. It was also very interesting to learn about how other cultures and how our culture in another time periods felt about the father being in the delivery room. I think that was around pages 206-211, but I’m not sure. I found your sub-chapter on couvade syndrome fascinating, which I distinctly remember to be page 210 because I had it bookmarked. I find the concept of a father feeling similar symptoms as the mother during the birthing process very interesting and I wonder if I will ever experience something similar. I think your book is just fascinating and I bet it educated a lot of the common people to be somewhat more learned about the world around them.
"But what could I have done to make this a better book - that would more effectively fulfill its mission?"
Oh man… There are almost no flaws in this book but one thing that stuck out to me when reading was that the book seemed one sided. I felt as if you used a lot of statistical evidence to prove your point but the context of the evidence wasn’t the same. For example, when you were talking about maternal death rates, you compared evidence from a small town doctor hundreds of years ago to modern government issued to evidence. I thought that to be a little iffy. If you ever right a new book or revise this book, I think you should change some of the sources you used as evidence. 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 society has changed from thinking birth is a miracle to stigmatizing birth by introducing modern techniques and interventions. Before reading your book, I had no idea as to what a birthing center was or what midwives were and now that I am more aware of today’s industrialized hospital system, I am definitely going to try and urge my future partner to give birth either at home or in a birthing center.
