I have to say that the book wasn't this for me at all, Michelle.

In fact, I enjoyed it enough to purchase a copy for myself to be part
of my personal lending library (I originally got it out from my local
library thinking I didn't want to buy another birth book) and also
purchased a copy to give as a gift for a friend who is pregnant with
her first.

Even though I have a whole bookshelf of childbirth books, I read
Giving Birth With Confidence with great interest and kept wanting to
go back to it whenever I put it down.

I love the Lamaze "Six Care Practice Papers" from the Lamaze website,
and send links to them all the time. I found the book is a wonderful
expansion on those.

I also loved the messages on page 26...the tapestry & page 40 2nd
paragraph "Look beyond what is..." (and many, many more but I have to
save some for later discussions, right :-)

I will say I was highly discouraged by the section on circumcision.
It is not simply cutting skin from the "tip" of the penis. It
completely removes the protective skin of the glans and removes all
of the mucous membrane which keeps the glans moist, and thereby
completely changing how the penis is designed to function.

Other key pieces of information are missing from the information
provided on circumcision in this book (as most others) -- a complete
description of the wonderful functions & purposes of the foreskin,
how many nerve endings it has, all of the useful purposes it serves
for both to infants and adult males (and their sexual partners),
etc. I thought it was a true missed opportunity to educate people
and go beyond the standard information that's typically provided to
parents, most of whom are not receiving adequate information to make
truly informed consent about this operation.

I'd be interested to learn more about where info in this section came
from, since the only references listed for that section come from the
AAP (not really an unbiased source)?

Have to run for now, but overall, I really did enjoy the book & look
forward to discussing it more!

Cathleen


--- In BOLDBookClub@yahoogroups.com, "Michelle Adelewitz"
<michelle.adelewitz@...> wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> I'm having a hard time getting my teeth into a discussion of this
one. Have
> you ever watched an old movie and felt like it was a total cliche,
and then
> realize that it's actually what all the cliches are based on?
That's what
> reading this book was like for me. It wasn't a new and fresh
approach, it
> was the original new approach. So I guess I felt like it was a lot
of the
> same old information, which is now available in so many places and
formats.
> It didn't feel more or less accessible than other sources.
>
> Agreement? Righteous indignation?
>
> Michelle
>