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by Boomert - The Birth Wars by Mary-Rose MacColl 12 Jan 2010
In 2004 Mary-Rose MacColl was hired to write up a review of Queensland maternity services. She discovered a battle zone--obstetricians and midwives, ‘competing for dominance, instead of concentrating on the needs of childbearing women’. In The Birth Wars, a thoughtful, engaging exploration of Australian maternity care, MacColl asserts that many problems are entrenched and systemic, because the two groups refuse to co-operate, and as a result, women suffer and babies die. The book canvasses many voices, those of obstetricians and midwives (some self-righteous, some angry, some reasonable), those of parents (some tragic, some ecstatic, some decisive but many more confused), and that of MacColl herself, whose own stories of birth and parenting are included. This self-referencing seems entirely appropriate to the subject matter--no one is neutral and every mother has stories to tell. MacColl calls for a system without propaganda disguised as choice, where continuity of care is valued, true levels of risk are acknowledged and understood, and where birthing women need not battle against their practitioners. Publicity material asserts that pregnant women should read this book. I’m inclined to say it’s not for the faint-hearted; but then childbirth is not for the faint-hearted either.

This review from Australian Bookseller & Publisher magazine (March 2009, Vol 88, No 6.) is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2009, Thorpe-Bowker.

Author Biography: Mary-Rose MacColl
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Birth Wars, Paperback (August 2009)

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No Safe Place, Paperback (August 1996)