Book review from ignorant man

[Greaseball]

I was looking up The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth on Amazon, and came across this review. I will try to link to it, since I probably can't paste the whole thing here:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...me&start-at=31

It's the 8th one on the page.

Here are a few quotes:

"If this were truly "The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth," the author would present the pros and cons of vaginal delivery versus C-section, and leave the decision up to you...she contends that vaginal birth does not damage the pelvic floor. Is she delusional? There is an overwhelming amount of scientific evidence to support that it does. Furthermore, I am a surgeon who has performed countless operations to repair this pelvic floor damage. It is obvious that this is associated with vaginal childbirth, NOT C-sections."

"...you probably will be bothered by the other side effects of vaginal delivery, such as urinary stress incontinence and a dozen other problems. Hence, I feel that propagandists for vaginal delivery, such as Henci Goer, are doing a great disservice to women."

The worst part:

"Furthermore, as a man, I know that vaginal childbirth can induce permanent and undesirable changes in the vagina...If this were a perfect world, I suppose men wouldn't care about such a thing, but the fact is they do. Women can ignore this, but only at their own peril. Men, being men, generally don't feel comfortable enough to discuss this with their partners if it's a problem. Instead, they'll often look for a greener (can I say tighter?) pasture."

[tinyshoes]

Wow, Greaseball, you've just shown me a whole new way to feel utterly revolted. :

What the heck?

I guess that's his opinon...I guess the smartest mamas might be able to see this chauvinist surgical attitude as the exact reason Ms. Goer had to write her book in the first place--to combat this tiresome "women's bodies are designed to fail" (never you mind the fact that the 'failing' body did produce ANOTHER HUMAN.)

I wish the author of the review could illumnate the nature and extent of his personal study of post-partum vaginas. He seems to suggest he's really been around the post-partum vaginal block...funny, since he suggests a stong preference for nulliparous, greener pastures, what a PERVERT.

I am a believer that censorship is not the best way to handle all undesirable opinions...and I hope that readers of this review can see the revolting childbirth bias:
-surgeon
-wants it tight
-cut her open to keep it tight

My goodness...I never new that using my body the way Mother Nature intended was "perilous"!

Puke. What a gross review.

[Greaseball]

I hope he doesn't have a wife. But he probably does.

I read in Open Season that doctors' wives are the people most likely to get sectioned.

I don't get the part about "trying to shove her vaginal birth propaganda down our throats." I think it's the "elective c-section for male pleasure" people, like him, that are aggressively promoting their agenda. How can the normal way of being born be considered some radical agenda now?

[MelKnee]

Originally Posted by Greaseball

"If this were truly "The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth," the author would present the pros and cons of vaginal delivery versus C-section, and leave the decision up to you...she contends that vaginal birth does not damage the pelvic floor. Is she delusional? There is an overwhelming amount of scientific evidence to support that it does. Furthermore, I am a surgeon who has performed countless operations to repair this pelvic floor damage. It is obvious that this is associated with vaginal childbirth, NOT C-sections."

Overwhelming scientific evidence, eh? I'd like to know how many of those studies had control groups of women who were allowed to move at will during labor, who were not augmented, who were pushing when they wanted rather than forced purple pushing, who were not flat on their backs? His data is meaningless.

[Rach]

oh my god. I feel ill. That review made me physcially ill. I feel almost..violated!
He's one of those "holier than thou I know everything too busy to wait around for labor" doctors.
If childbirth really damages the pelvic floor, how are we still here?! How did all those women througout thousands of years give birth to so many babies?! How did they satisfy their husbands with a "damaged" pelvic floor?
He needs to face it. I know PLENTY of women that are tighter after having a baby. To the point where it's uncomfortable for their husbands even!
Could these women have suffered pelvic floor damage by being forced to push so early?! By doctor's being so invasive during labor with internal monitor after scalp monitor checking for dialation every hour?!
Women need to do what's natural during labor. If they want to eat, let them eat. If they want to walk, let them walk. If they want to squat to deliver, let them! When I was pregnant, I read about all kinds of positions that women labored and gave birth over the years. I read about how the infant/maternal mortality rate SKY ROCKETED once doctors began the practice of delivering the babies.
Yes, childbirth can be stressful on the mom and baby, but what will women do if we have elective CSections for decades and decades with the rates increasing every year? One day, we may find ourselves without technology to help us, what then? I wonder if evolution would ever take over, resulting in CSections being "the natural way".

[Greaseball]

And what about episiotomy? That's the solution offered by doctors to prevent these "problems" and I fail to see how cutting up the vagina makes it work better.

I don't know how common it is anymore. Books like What to Expect say that it happens to 80-90% of first-time mothers. I was never told that I would need one, even though I had a forceps delivery. (Mainstream books say that an epis is almost always necessary with instrument delivery.)

But when I read things from women who are having elective c/s with their second child, one of the reasons they give is that they don't want to have an episiotomy. That seems a bit strange to me; I'd rather have an epis than major surgery! But I guess they don't know an epis is almost never necessary anyway.

In A Woman in Residence an OB is asking a female resident, "Why don't women like episiotomies?" After she gives him the obvious answers, he falls back on the tightness issue, and she tells him that these women who supposedly "get loose and baggy" usually keep having children, so apparently men have sex with them anyway. The OB's comment was "That's because no man ever turns anything down."

[georgia]

I've recently seen discussion of the benefits of c-sections on vaginas on MDC, so I don't think this take is all that uncommon......the whole "tightness" issue is pervasive, and IMO, a very sad commentary on our culture.

[doulamomvicki]

:Puke

[Faith]

So, can I ask a really stupid question? *Does* having babies make you looser? What about a lot of babies? I am on number three now, and of course DH says no.

I can see where it logicially would. But I can also see where it wouldn't, since we are meant to birth babies in the first place.

For the record, I think this guy is a jerk, and I am having my second homebirth. I just wonder if there is any truth to this, now that it is on my mind (and I appartently need one more thing to make me feel self-conscious).

[LavenderMae]

Vaginal birth propaganda, pleeeaaaassse give me f'ing break. Why do some humans think they know better than nature (or god). Hello dumba$$ we are supposed to give birth from our vaginas. The tightness crap just reminds me of how in some countries women are recircumcised after they give birth so they will be virgin tight again for there husbands (sort of similiar to epis. of course epis are to a lessor degree) I can't believe women really think tightness of the vagina is a good reason to have a c-section. I am disgusted it is discussed as a pro to c-sections. What is wrong with people??????

[AnnMarie]

Originally Posted by Greaseball

Men, being men, generally don't feel comfortable enough to discuss this with their partners if it's a problem. Instead, they'll often look for a greener (can I say tighter?) pasture."

: : : :Puke

[AnnMarie]

Originally Posted by Faith

So, can I ask a really stupid question? *Does* having babies make you looser? What about a lot of babies? I am on number three now, and of course DH says no.

I think it can for some people. I know sex feels different for me now. Sorry, I know, TMI.

[Greaseball]

About getting looser...I don't think I'm particularly looser, but the whole vagina feels different, even more than 2 years after giving birth. Of course, that is probably because I had internal tearing from the forceps. But I am definitely not the same.

But it's not a bad thing (except for the scars) and I would much rather be loose and baggy : than have an unnecessary cesarean. I guess I care more about my own body than a man's sexual pleasure!

Someone else said that it's really the first baby that does the most stretching, and that subsequent deliveries don't effect it that much. Also, the vagina has a baby inside it for only a few hours (or minutes). It is without a baby inside for a much greater period of time. Ina May Gaskin mentions in her new book that men's sexual organs can expand many times their size and they don't get ruined; the same is true of women's.

[Hera]

I'm sure if you do enough kegels you'll be fine...maybe some temporary stretching, but I can't imagine it would last too long. All that tissue is made to stretch. Anyway, looseness is a matter of muscle tone.

[IslandMamma]

Originally Posted by tinyshoes

Wow, Greaseball, you've just shown me a whole new way to feel utterly revolted. :

ITA!!!!! Argh. What a... prick. Gahhhhhhhh.

BTW, after having a vaginal birth and one heck of a tear, while my vagina HAS changed, sex-- and orgasm-- actually feel better now. I mean, space shuttle taking off kinda better.

[majazama]

Can I just say... :Puke that was my feeling after I read the last one there. How can he talk for all men needing "tighter" pastures?!? Again... :Puke

[etoilech]

I read that review on Amazon when, I was buying the book (I DID buy it) in my 1st trimester. I read it to my DH and we both had a good laugh. It did really disturb me though. The man obviously has a god complex. It is really an asinine reveiw and should be removed. I'd love to see the so called reams of "evidence" supporting his view. Such people ought to have their medical licence revoked to say the least.

Olivia

[MelKnee]

Originally Posted by *Mamajaza*

Can I just say... :Puke that was my feeling after I read the last one there. How can he talk for all men needing "tighter" pastures?!? Again... :Puke

Well, he probably has to assume that all men want tighter to console himself on his tiny penis.

I mean really. Why would a man be soooo obsessed with vaginal tightness unless it was very difficult for him to find a tight vagina.

It's not us ladies. It's him.

[Artisan]

Originally Posted by MelKnee

Well, he probably has to assume that all men want tighter to console himself on his tiny penis.

I mean really. Why would a man be soooo obsessed with vaginal tightness unless it was very difficult for him to find a tight vagina.

It's not us ladies. It's him.

Yes, who's the one with the problem here? And this is who is practicing medicine, who many women trust for advice! This is sooooooooo disgusting.

[daylily]

I wonder how he'd feel if his mother had been so concerned for her own "tightness" that she'd never had him at all.