Maternity Books

This fascinating and thought-provoking book should be read by anyone interested in disability rights. It presents a variety of views on a challenging topic. The book deals with philosophical issues in understandable terms, and argues for a new paradigm for consideration of prenatal testing.

Different chapters are written by various authors from different backgrounds. Physicians, professors, parents, those with disabilities, therapists and lawyers all contribute to this multifaceted approach to whether or not prenatal testing devalues those with disabilities. Social factors and medical factors are discussed with clarity. This book will cause the reader to question the basis for their pre-concieved beliefs about what it means to have a disability, and will encourage them to look at this issue in a more thoughtful way.

I found this book difficult to put down, and have recommended it to several friends.

(A longer version of this review ran in the January 2001 issue of Ragged Edge magazine.) Does prenatal testing for genetic defects "send a message" to disabled people? Adrienne Asch, the Henry L. Luce Professor of Biology, Ethics and Reproduction at Wellesley College, insists that it does. For two years, Asch and Hastings Center bioethicist Eric Parens engaged a group of scholars, philosophers, ethicists, biologists, physicians, sociologists and educators under the auspices of the Hastings Center to grapple with that question, and the disability rights perspective on prenatal testing in general. This book is the product of that project.

After listening to all the opinions expressed by project members, Asch writes in an essay late in the book that she has not changed her mind. She says that people who choose to abort based on a diagnosis of disability are "allowing a single trait to stand in for the whole, to obliterate the whole." People like Baily -- and they are in the large majority in society -- simply do not believe that aborting a fetus because it will likely have a disability "sends a message" that is bigoted; most do not believe that it sends any message at all. Many do not agree that the provision of more accurate information about disabilities or about living with particular disabilities would make any great difference in their decision to abort a fetus they feared carried a "defect." Even knowing about disabled people and their lives, she would still not want to bear a disabled child if it could be avoided, says Baily. Nor do they buy the "any/particular" distinction articulated by Asch, who has been writing about the disability perspective on reproductive choice for decades. The "any/particular distinction" refers to the difference between the decision to simply not have any child at all at the time -- the decision of someone who becomes pregnant when they were not planning a family and thus seeks an abortion, for example -- and the decision to abort a particular fetus, even when the woman in fact wants a child, when prenatal testing has revealed disability in the fetus. The project, funded in part by a grant from the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research, did not reach unanimity on any of the "major claims" of the disability rights movement -- not after five intense two-day intense meetings, not despite ongoing email correspondence among participants, notwithstanding meetings with members of the Society for Disability Studies. So are we simply at that juncture in history in which almost no one outside one's tiny community of thought believes one's critique; before one's ideas are accepted? Is this what it was like in the 1800s to hear perfectly nice, logical people say things which we now we see as hopelessly racist? It's hard to tell. This is an important, though academic, book. It lays out both the disability rights critique from Asch, Marsha Saxton and others, and the reasons why people just don't "buy" the argument that life with a disability is alright, which is really what it comes right down to.

"Using prenatal tests to prevent the births of babies with disabilities seems to be self-evidently good to many people," Asch writes. No matter that critics argue that these beliefs stem from unexamined attitudes about disability; this project shows that when the attitudes are examined they are often found to be fine attitudes -- by those who hold them. In her piercingly honest essay "Somewhere A Mockingbird" (which also appeared in the anthology Bigger Than The Sky: Disabled Women on Parenting (Ragged Edge, Jan./ Feb. 2000), Deborah Kent reports what happens when she and her husband begin to plan having a child, knowing it may be born with Kent's genetic blindness: Despite the closeness of the couple, writes Kent, she had failed to convince her husband, even after their years together, "that it is really okay to be blind." "I will always believe that blindness is a neutral trait, neither to be prized nor shunned. Very few people, including those dearest to me, share that conviction... They cannot fully relinquish their negative assumptions...." "Though they dread blindness as a fate to be avoided at almost any cost," she writes of her family and friends, "they give me their trust and respect. I don't understand how they live without discomfort amid such contradictions."(emphasis ours.) Yet many of the project's participants live with this contradiction seemingly quite well and without question. If there is a theme to be taken away from this volume, it is that society can quite easily live without examining such contradictions. In one of the most sobering essays in the book, Nancy Press writes that "certain silences in the public discourse have actually enabled the routinization and rapid growth of prenatal testing,.... by obscuring or limiting the need for public debate about two topics about which Americans are deeply conflicted but which lie at the heart of prenatal testing: abortion and disability." This book arrives at a time in our society when prenatal testing is becoming routine -- and a duty. As tests for finding ever more genetic traits and predispositions become ever easier to administer, our country's legal hubris being what it is, women will be told to get them done, or else. Sociologist Dorothy Wertz contends that "even if some lines might be drawn in practice they will not make a difference since market and political forces will determine which prenatal tests are offered and in what kind of an atmosphere they will be offered." Biologist Pilar Ossorio points out that "when prenatal tests become part of routine [medical] practice, courts will find that physicians have a duty to offer them." Detailing the strange and horrific outcome, today's "wrongful birth" and "wrongful life" lawsuits (in which the disabled child argues before the court "that her life is worse than non-existence"), Ossorio's chapter is a sober reminder of the road we head down when we reject the disability rights critique of prenatal testing.

The book was just exactly the way its being described by the seller. Just like a brand new. I will definitely like to purchase another book from this seller in future

I was very pleased to receive my book so promptly! I'm set for my next rotation. I am very happy.

Favorite scene with Bri-
Writing the letter in case anything should happen.

Favorite scene with Hunter-
Lunch with Bri and her father.

Together-
Going into labor and giving birth and proposing.

With their guard dropped after a night locked in a convenience shop storeroom, Briana McCallum and Hunter Callaghan give in to the overpowering passion that sparkles between them. Their lovemaking is divine as they connect on the spiritual plane as well as the physical. Hunter wakes, planning to shower and change before offering to turn his world upside down for her over breakfast. Unfortunately, when Hunter arrives back at her hotel room thirty minutes later, Briana is gone. When he learns her last name and association with the Maitland fortune, he assumes she's one more rich woman playing at being a do-gooder and slumming with him.

Briana wakes to a sounding alarm and only a stud for his tuxedo shirt to prove the reality of their extraordinary passion. Disappointed because she'd found the night to be something special, she leaves for the airport feeling angry. Seven months later, and pregnant with triplets, Hunter reappears in her life where Briana's the hospital administrator. But she's not named the father of her babies, and has no intention of doing so.

The well-crafted conflict in TRIPLET SECRET BABIES will delight romance lovers. While I ordinarily disdain romances built around a misunderstanding, the careful plotting of this disaster left me amused instead. These are two splendid characters trapped by their own preconceptions and babies. The fireworks that result keep the pages turning quickly, providing a marvelous read. Very highly recommended.

I received this book from my sister today. I began reading and did not put it down until I finished it. Not only does the author write of a midwife's contribution to the women in her community, but she brings to light the despicable treatment of Judy Lee by the very people in her community who should have celebrated that someone was giving care to women in need. It was not surprising that her problems began when she moved into the mainstream when educated, insured women began seeking her services and she was able to bill insurance companies. Once that impacted the pocketbooks of the medical profession, she needed to be stopped. I did appreciate the supporters she had which even included some fine physicians. The use of actual newspaper articles, affidavits from people who observed what happened and the first hand account of Judy Lee's story provided differing vantage points from which to view the events. Judy Lee served the large community as a teacher of midwives, medical students, and individuals training as paramedics as well as being involved with committees related to women's health. She was very accepted until one doctor decided she needed to be stopped. I am sure Judy Lee has contributed greatly in her life because it is obvious in the book what a fine individual she is. Unfortunately, since 1985, the people who needed her the most were not beneficiaries of the humanity she has to offer.

This book was hard to put down and would have been read in one sitting if I had the time This book tells of the hardships that lay-midwife Judy Lee went through and mastered. As an aspiring midwife, I hope to have the strength and courage that Judy did to stand up for midwifey, and to not simply subcome to "powerful" dictating doctors who think technical birth is better than the way nature intened. This book is a must read for any one in the medical feild as well as patients. My only disapointment is that the book ended before I wanted it too. Judy's story of her life as a midwife is 100% inspiring.

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Favorite scene with Laura-
Laura and Megan talk about Megan's problem.

Favorite scene with Mick-
Mick goes to Laura's with a gift and to say a final goodbye after taking her to work.

Favorite scene with Laura and Mick together-
Mick goes to Laura's with a gift and to say a final goodbye after taking her to work.

A very good book. The thing that amazes me is that the continuity is maintained well despite different authors writing for the series.

Women's Health Case Studies provides an excellent review for the NCC certification exam. If you know the information provided in this book, you will feel very comfortable taking the exam. Covers important information that I did not find in any other source.

This is one of three review books I have found for preparing for the WHNP exam. What I really liked about this review book was the case study format. The short scenarios give enough information to make you think, but not so much as to make the answer a "gimme". The rational for each answer not only explaions the correct answer, but also explains why the other options are incorrect. I have learned a great deal from this text!

This important, breakthrough book is for anyone who celebrates life. It presents rigorously researched, well-documented facts, interspersed with the personal story of the author, an investigative journalist. Here, you will NOT find the dull drone of dogma, the offensive rhetoric of a fanatical extremist, or endless, mind-numbing, dissection of every possible legal, moral and ethical issue surrounding the subject of abortion. Instead, you will find a book written with the gentleness, sensitivity and compassion of a mother, the razor-sharp insight and relentless truth-seeking of an investigative journalist, and the soul of a poet.

Even if abortion is not your "particular issue" you will not fail to be astonished by the revelations contained in this book, most especially the stunning truth about the real "Jane Roe." As the cover art for this book suggests, you will find within its pages diverse pieces of a puzzle -- from the maternal sublimation of the "Cabbage Patch Kids" craze of the 1980's, to the more sinister undercurrent of abortion being used as a filtration mechanism in the service of social, economic, racial and genetic engineering -- all coming together to form a picture of stark and startling clarity.

The author's journey from ambivalence to passion regarding the issue of abortion began as she came to the realization that her own life had been lived amidst a seismic shifting of a culture. She chronicles her search for answers with uncompromising honesty about her life, the joys of childbirth and the sorrow of miscarriages. As this search unfolds, facts which have been so artfully submerged are brought to light, including manipulation of statistics, mass media deception and the conspiracy of silence surrounding the toxic aftermath of abortion. The author masterfully strikes a delicate balance between educating all and offending none. Her voice is a whisper which allows the facts to speak volumes.

This is a most impressive debut effort from author Marybeth Hagan, an investigative journalist we are certain to be hearing more from. This can only be great news for those of us who value truth as the paramount virtue upon which any society which hopes to survive must be based. I invite you to immerse yourself within the pages of this book and emerge transformed by the gift of its unalterable truth: Abortion is not a matter of choice, but a matter of Love -- Maternal Love -- the Love that says yes to life!

I applaud Marybeth Hagan for being so graceful and eloquent an advocate for the pre-born citizens of the world.

The book is available now and I love it !!!! I recommend it to all women

The Cahill-Lamont wedding would have been a coup for wedding planner Anna Maitland if she wasn't so certain that the bride and groom, two good friends, weren't making the biggest mistake of their lives. Anna's priority was making the day a dream for Caroline Lamont but when she discovered that wealthy businessman Austin Cahill sought this marriage for the sake of producing an heir to leave his fortune to, she couldn't help but disapprove despite claims from both parties that they were certain that this was what they wanted. Still another problem arose when her brilliant son Will found a kindred spirit in Austin. And yet, the more Anna comes to know and understand what motivates Austin, the more she finds herself drawn to him. For Austin Cahill, marriage to his friend Caroline is ideal. Neither of them is capable of love and all he wants is a child to leave everything to. But when he meets their wedding planner, he can't help but admire Anna for her poise, her wit, and her incredible son. As he becomes more involved in making decisions regarding the wedding, he unexpectedly finds himself falling in love with Anna and her son.

Muriel Jensen's installment of the Maitland Maternity series is the best yet. The story is fluid and the characters are engaging. She turns what could be clichéd into something creative and endearing. Austin is a hero who isn't heartless despite the circumstances involving his intent to wed. His decision to marry Caroline is not a dispassionate one because he knows that the two of them truly are good friends. And though Jensen could have employed a love triangle as a tool, she doesn't. Instead, Anna comes to respect both Austin and Caroline despite her misgivings about preparing this wedding. Anna is a strong heroine who has endured a loveless marriage so her concern for Caroline becomes sincere and admirable. She is also able to relate to Austin and his need for family. But she never behaves unprofessionally and always displays her utter sense of responsibility. One of the best things about this story is the fact that it is not their immediate attraction that pulls Austin and Anna together so much as a grudging friendship whose potential for love is explored with the help of Will, the ten-year old financial wizard who is Anna's pride and a source of mild envy for Austin. There is a secret that Anna does keep from Austin that is paramount to the story but it is worked through thoroughly and without breaking the fluidity of this story. In addition, Jensen also juggles the secondary plots incredibly well, integrating them into the story without detracting from the appeal of Austin, Anna, and Will's story.

As an L&D nurse, I have witnessed my fair share of medically managed labors and surgically assisted births. I also deal with the mangled mothers and stunned newborns left behind as the OB hurries off to their next "job." American/western hospital labor and birth is so far from normal it's shocking. How refreshing to read this book and learn how women's needs in birth can be met and safety and health can be a priority as well. Dr Odent describes the needs of women and how to meet them during pregnancy and birth delightfully. It is a fascinating and informative read.