"Hey - thanks for writing Born In the USA How A Broken Maternity System Must Be Fixed To Put Women and Children First. Your thesis/core argument main idea of fixing the way birth is done, and taking out so much of the hospital aspect in birth and giving the choice back to the women, moved me to rethink the way that I want my child to be born. I don’t think it will be my decision however, because the choice should be up to the woman but I want to advocate for my wife to look into alternate ideas of how to have our baby.”
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 s/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 steps that need to be taken to get towards the goal of giving women back the power. I have to think this was the most interesting part of the book because when watching the business of being born, toward the end there was a female who felt conflicted about not having a hospital birth as if she was obligated to. The end of the story about taking steps forward connected back 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).
• There are countries with much higher home-birth and mortality rates then the United States which you wrote about on page 145 of your book. (Wagner, 145)
• An idea I agreed with the most even before reading this text, homebirths instead of the hospital, the home is where the woman is the most familiar with everything around her, and hospitals are the place people go to die. This which you wrote about on 186 (Wagner 186)
• And the Idea that ties into the main idea that most, patients have rights that aren't always respected by doctors which you write about on page 174. (Wagner, 174)
At this point, realizing that s/he's having a unique conversation with a serious reader of her/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, policy analysis) from the perspective of a concerned medical doctor 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 line up the alternative idea presented in a way so the reader understands what part is alternatives and what part is evidence. During your book you use a lot of alternatives but at the same time because they are being refuted, it makes it seem like the book is out of alignment. The evidence and alternatives get in the way of each other that just make it seem as if you are contradicting yourself. 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 putting the choice back into the hands of women, because I have never looked at it like that. As far as making sure the woman is comfortable through either doulas, midwives, taking away medications such as Pitocin that can lead to things like C-sections & separating the place where some people go to die and others go to be born. In fact, I'm likely to do the birth of my own child differently, and try to educate people that I know about birth as well." The author replies, "Thanks! Talking to you gives me hope about our future as a society”
Thank you for your time Mr. Wagner. For school I will be doing a project on birth and everything we have done in our birth unit. To follow up on what I thought about the book and what I plan to do for a project you can visit http://normalisweirdchrisr.blogspot.com/
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