Yesterday I read The Birth House by Ami McKay. (Yes, all in one day. I do read quickly!) And while I did enjoy the book somewhat (it does have an energetic storyline that propels the reader along) it's my least favourite of the books so far.
The Birth House is about Dora Rare, the only girl born in 5 generations of Rares (although that fact is mentioned a number of times in the book, it's not clear to me why that's so important.) who is growing up and coming of age during the First World War. She "apprentices" (to use the term loosely) to the local midwife, Miss Babineau and eventually becomes the midwife for her rural Nova Scotian community. However, she is in conflict with the evil Dr. Thomas and his maternity hospital and his promise of pain-free births with the use of drugs. Eventually Dora must leave the community and go to Boston for a vacation until her good name can be restored.
My problem with the book is that I thought it was biased. It has an agenda - the promotion of midwife assisted births at home, and it is engaged in promoting that agenda. In one respect I do agree with the women of the book - a woman should be able to choose (as much as is medically possible) how she'd like to have her baby. But this book seems to say that the choice should be a home birth with a midwife. A hospital birth with a doctor and drugs is not presented as a feasible option. The doctor and hospital are presented as evil right from the beginning. The one woman who does have a hospital birth seems to be suffering some sort of post-partum depression while the home-birth mothers are happy and cheerful.
That isn't to say that every home birth is perfect: in one case, the baby is lost. In another, the mother is lost. The book is set in 1916-1918, so it is unlikely that even if the births had taken place in a hospital that the baby and mother would have been saved given the medical technology of the time. So, there is a small attempt at balance between the two sides.
My other issue with the book - somewhat related to the above issues of balance and the book's agenda, is that I didn't feel that the story was created organically. Basically, the author wanted to write a book about women's reproductive issues in the early 20th century. That's fine. But then that's all the book was about - you didn't really worry too much about Dora or the other characters as the book was so focused on birth issues and good midwives vs. evil doctors. The story didn't develop organically: it was structured to hit the high points of the events of that time - the war, the Halifax explosion. Oh, now let's send the character to Boston (where fortunately her brother has somehow found a rich paramour) just in time for the molasses explosion. (No, I am not making that up - go read about it on wikipedia!) Now it's time for the flu epidemic. It didn't feel like the characters developed along with the story.
The book presented the doctor and the hospital and the use of painkillers in labour as terrible things. Yet I'm not sure the book did a service to midwives either: Miss Babineau is kind of spacey (she's also seen as the local witch) and seems to use as much mystical/folkloric remedies as she does practical applications. Further, once Dora becomes the local midwife it is unclear exactly how much training that she actually has. Yes, in some cases home remedies have been proven to work; in other cases an old wives' tale is just that - a practice that has no scientific basis and in some cases can prove harmful to the patient. I think many midwives already feel marginalized by doctors and the medical profession: this book will not help with that.
So, as you can tell, I didn't really enjoy this book. Maybe I'm just not interested in stories about birth. I think I would have liked it more if there had been more of an effort made to balance the issues: not just an evil doctor with his terrible modern science taking away women's choices versus the innocent, mystical midwife, holder of all sacred women's knowledge. The doctor was a one-dimensional, one-note character. If there had been more balance and the book wasn't so focused pushing its home birth agenda, it would have been more interesting. Alternatively, the author could have written a non-fiction book on birth practices in rural Nova Scotia in the early 1900's and the conflicts (or not) between doctors and midwives: that would have worked better as well. But as it stands now, this is probably my least favourite of the Canada Reads books so far. I will be very interested to hear what the panel has to say about it.
One thing I will say about the Canada Reads books is that they are entertainingly diverse. So far, I've read about a middle-aged woman writer with a missing daughter in Ontario, a political junkie professor in Ottawa, and a turn of the century midwife in rural Nova Scotia. Next book: The Bone Cage by Angie Abdou, in which I'll read about the lives of Olympic-level athletes.
I dunno ... I hate preachiness when it comes to women's reproductive choices, whatever the nature of the argument. Not saying that home births aren't the way to go for some people, but there's no need to denigrate hospital births either - it's not any less "natural". I hate the fact that so much guilt and/or shame is heaped on women on the basis of choices they make over their own bodies (especially when those choices don't negatively affect anyone else). Anyway ... long story short, I probably would never read this book. Blegh!
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, the preachiness was more implied than explicit - the book didn't come out and say that women should only have home births, but it portrayed nearly every home birth as an enlightening, positive experience, and the hospital birth as a scary, negative one.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about women's choices though: women should have the choice to give birth how they want, if possible. (Barring any procedures that become necessary due to complications.) And you're so right - how a woman gives birth does not affect anyone else! How does one woman's choice to give birth at home affect another woman's choice to give birth at a hospital? Whatever you want to do is fine. I do have to admit to some slight bias against unassisted home births: what if there was an emergency? You should at least have a midwife with you. But I won't get into that debate here.
Fortunately the next book is much better!