Milli Hill Give Birth like a Feminist book

[BertieBotts]

I've bought this recently, as people said it was empowering, but at 36 weeks pregnant I'm struggling a bit with the first few chapters which have lots of talk of birth trauma, women's wishes being overridden in labour, stillbirth etc.

I have stopped reading it for now and will look again after the birth. But I wondered, if anyone has it/has read it recently, are there later chapters it's worth skipping ahead to which have more of the empowering stuff and less focus on adverse outcomes?

I have bought her other book too since it went down to 99p so might just stick with that one. But I thought it was worth asking just in case :)

Hi, I am in the same situation - I had to stop reading it because of all the sad and negative stuff at the beginning. I've found 'The Positive Birth Book' by Milli Hill much better, but would also like to know about further more positive chapters in Give Birth like a Feminist.

I'm sorry a book that is supposed to be empowering was distressing to read. When I was having my children I read Expecting Better and I found that very helpful though perhaps in a slightly different way

I think a lot of the book is about the context of modern practices and how they can be detrimental to women. I remember being surprised that the book wasn’t a ‘how to’. I am so glad I read it though, understanding the reasons why some things are standard really helped me be able to question if they needed to happen to me.

It spells out why birthing practices needs to be on the feminist agenda and why it’s perhaps been ignored for some time.

What was really useful was the research examples that had a really positive impact on outcomes for women, eg. Where they’d done studies trailing better continuity of care or the stats from Ida May’s farm.

I do think that perhaps 36 weeks is a little late to be reading it though, it was the first book I read through my first and second trimester before I moved onto the hypnobirthing stuff. It gave me a good background/base for making decisions and helped reframe birth in my head. I found the overall experience of reading it to be positive.

Ah ok so perhaps it is best to stick with the positive birth book, which I'm finding better.

The title is a bit misleading! It should perhaps be something like birth is a feminist issue. I'm sure I'll be able to read it later once I know I'm not giving birth again :o it seems a bit like the politics of breastfeeding, but for birth! I found that book really interesting.