A long-listed finalist for the 2009 Walkley non-fiction book of the year
Each day battles are waged in hospitals and clinics around Australia: between those who view birth as natural and those who view birth as medical.
Women are told that they have pregnancy and birth care choices. But their only real choice is which side to take in the birth wars.
Both sides care deeply about women and babies and, both sides claim they should manage birth for women. They are the doctors and midwives, ‘mechanics’ and ‘organics’, vying for power in The Birth Wars.
Mary-Rose MacColl, fiction-writer, mother and journalist who spent years investigating maternity care, proposes that women and babies who should be at the centre of maternity care are often ignored by the argument between those who view birth as natural and those who view birth as normal.
Some midwives and obstetricians are moderate and co-operative - but many are entirely opposed to the idea of working together, or sharing expertise.
In MacColl's parlance, the "organics" are mainly midwives who believe birth is a natural process that has become overly medicalised, with the consequence that many women are traumatised by cold, clinical births, unnecessary Caesareans and excessive medication.
The "mechanics" include many obstetricians and hospital clinicians, who believe birth is a risky, delicate process that must be carefully monitored to ensure women and babies are safe.
In that borderland, women suffer and babies die.
MacColl has two goals. The first is to raise awareness that the birth wars exist, in the hope that parents can think carefully about their choices before the contractions begin. The second is for the "organics and mechanics" to start to communicate.
She says both sides "need to talk to each other and they need to work out their differences, so that women get a coherent view about maternity care from the maternity care profession. I think that's a reasonable thing for women to expect."
Based on extensive interviews, national research and moving personal stories, The Birth Wars exposes the cold reality of what happens to women when these two sides clash. Real women speak from the heart in this book - from those empowered by their birth experiences, to the many left traumatised, bereaved or confused.
The Birth Wars- The conflict putting Australian women and babies at risk by Mary-Rose MacColl, published by University of Queensland Press, RRP $34.95
Review by Moriane Morellec, a student at the University of Western Australia in Perth and Walkley Foundation intern.
