January Birthworker Bookclub: Books about The System

You are a good labor nurse. You care A LOT. So how do we have so many caring, hardworking, smart clinicians and still have an American maternity care system that is not making the grade?  Maybe you’ve known for a while that our maternal and neonatal mortality and morbidity statistics in the US are shameful.  Certainly, you can’t have missed the fact that black women are 3-4 times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women (and yes, that’s controlled for every other variable). And term infants are twice as likely to die than our European counterparts?!? Let me be abundantly clear: you have a professional duty to work for the changes we need to do better by our patients and families. Becoming an AWHONN member and taking any of my courses are good first steps. You might also want to do a little reading. These issues are complex, generational, and rooted in patriarchy and white-supremacy.  That's not a point of debate: please see the fantastic National AWHONN Conference talks this year and last that covered this, including by Dorothy Roberts, JD. You can’t have an informed perspective from social media alone, although I certainly have found several folks who I learn from. We have to listen, learn and understand before we start to speak or make decisions, especially if we hold positions of power within our hospitals. 

Here are 4 books that have impacted me tremendously.

1. A Good Birth by Anne Drapkin Lyerly, MD

If you’ve ever heard or uttered the words “healthy mom, healthy baby...that's all that matters” then this is the book for you.  Defining a good birth solely by clinical outcomes leads us to overlook a lot of important (dare I say critical?) aspects of birth that are deeply important to women.  It reminded me of the landmark Listening to Mothers surveys and more importantly, reminded me why birthwork is a vocation.

2. Babies are Not Pizzas by Rebecca Decker, PhD, RN

“Babies are born, not delivered...they’re not pizzas!”  I heard this phrase from Marie Mongan in my hypnobirthing training in 2009 and she’s uses it in her books as well.  She was making a point about the importance of language in the birthsetting and I think it illustrates her point well. Like Ms. Mongan,  Dr. Dekker is a wealth of information and founder of Evidence Based Birth. This is a gentle intro if you’re a nurse who isn’t totally sure that the books on this list aren’t a little too radical.

3. Medical Bondage: Race, Gender & the Origins of American Gynecology by Deirdre Cooper Owens, PhD

Dr. Cooper Owens is a professor of History of Medicine and the Director of the Humanities in Medicine Program at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She is an expert in this field and her book is such a gem.  You know how the last few years, especially 2020, we’ve been realizing all the history we were never taught in schools?  Well, consider this the history we never learned in nursing school. The past is prologue and this famous phrase is certainly relevant today, especially if we hope to change our maternity outcomes in the future.

4. Birthing Justice: Black Women, Pregnancy, and Childbirth, edited by Julia Oparah & Alicia Bonaparte

Have you heard the phrase “seek first to understand, then to be understood”?  It's a polite way to say, “shush, I have something you need to hear”. This is an anthology that centers Black women in the conversation about what should be done to repair the American maternity care system, which is disproportionately harming them and their babies. A mix of stories and scholarship, it makes a lot of sense to me that nurses, as patient advocates, should be listening to, well, our patients.  

There you have it, my book-loving birthworker! Four books that will help you to get you going! Once you dive into one of these titles, share your latest read on Instagram and use the hashtag #birthworkerbookclub to let us know.

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