So, yesterday was the official kick-off of the Keep Portland Weird festival here in Paris, which meant that I had a reading/screening in the...
Continue »
I find it ironic that the blurb for this book describes it as "uncensored". O'Mara's Mothering runs a large forum that's like North Korea with organic smoothies. Members are banned when they mention outside boards, say goodbye, and privately question admins' actions. The gulag approach to moderation has apparently gone on for years there.
I started out a fan of Mothering magazine, though I thought some of the articles were a little on the extreme side. The insistance that formula is dangerous and that fathers are less important to babies than mothers are, for instance. And the fears over vaccines that haven't had thimerosal in them for years, even though the thimerosal-autism link was thoroughly debunked years ago. But I enjoyed the articles on living more calmly, more thoughtfully.
Still, after reading the magazine and fora for a few years, I think O'Mara and her core readership are considerably more radical politically, and more anti-science, than all the organic produce and babywearing initially suggest. And I had not encountered maternalism before -- the idea that women are meant to be mothers, and that our *really* important role is as nurturers.
But it's the anti-science slant that would concern me most about this book. From the introduction on, doctors and medical professionals are cast as suspect. Hospitals and maternity wards have an air of doom about them. Safe and frequently helpful OB procedures are written about in a way that makes them look like procedures for confining cattle. (My own anaesthesiologist is going into my will, bless the man.) But the car that takes you to the hospital, the houses that homebirthed babies are born in, the internet on which Mothering communicates -- all are built with the science and engineering of their times, and those seem to be just fine.
The book discourages prenatal testing, even for parents who don't intend to abort a fetus with abnormalities, but just want time to prepare. The format is "soberly and quickly, here is the official information; at length, here are all the negatives about it; here's how to say no when people want you to get the tests."
There is little discussion of exercise. Concerns about excessive weight gain are brushed aside. This is dismaying, because it's no longer rare for women to gain 80 lbs with a singleton pregnancy, and high weight gain in pregnancy is a predictor of obesity in midlife; it also increases the risk of gestational diabetes and pre-eclampsia. I would recommend James Clapp's "Exercising Through Your Pregnancy".
The discussion of fatherhood also disturbs me. There's a "just for fathers" chapter in the book, reminiscent of the patronizing "just for girls" sections in older books. Again, the tone is strange to me; she tells fathers to explore their own relationships with their fathers, who are presumed to have been absent, distant, cold, and unaccepting of the young boy's emotional life, bonding only over baseball. In two or three pages there are instructions for how to "heal" their relationships with their fathers, dead or living.
You'll be warned about electromagnetic radiation from household appliances. Again, comprehensively debunked, but nevermind all that science. After all, there's all those children running around with genetic abnormalities induced by laser printers and hairdryers. (Right, there aren't. That's because the wavelength of household current is much too low to break chemical bonds.) But OK. It can't hurt to turn some appliances off. You'll want to look out for all that EM radiation from the sun and your own nervous system, though.
Finally, O'Mara says that science and medicine have forced on us the unnatural idea that pregnancy and birth are complicated. To me this is not only know-nothing but the denial of the extraordinary view we've had through biology. Physically, pregnancy and childbirth are complicated. Wonderfully complicated. The body does extraordinary things for nine months, and the progress of it is more complex than any construction we humans see.
It's all a pity, because in a more moderate form, I think O'Mara's got valuable messages. As malpractice pushes more and more OBs to order bed rest and C-sections -- the rate is still skyrocketing -- I think it's important to promote healthy, fit pregnancy that isn't fear-ridden, and support safe midwifed birth. But I fear O'Mara throws the baby out with the bathwater.
For older mothers, I'd recommend Kelly Shanahan's "Your Over-35 Week By Week Pregnancy Guide".
-- a leftish mother whose miracle child has so far survived anaesthesia, pitocin, hospital birth, formula, her own crib, antibiotics, the odd non-organic cup of milk, and her mother's employment.
Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No
(9 of 17 readers found this comment helpful)
Powell's City of Books is an independent bookstore in Portland, Oregon, that fills a whole city block with more than a million new, used, and out of print books. Shop those shelves — plus literally millions more books, DVDs, and eBooks — here at Powells.com.
Don't Miss
Customer Comments
marnie27 has commented on (1) product.
Mothering Magazine's Having a Baby, Naturally: The Mothering Magazine Guide to Pregnancy and Childbirth by Peggy O'Mara
marnie27, June 17, 2007
I find it ironic that the blurb for this book describes it as "uncensored". O'Mara's Mothering runs a large forum that's like North Korea with organic smoothies. Members are banned when they mention outside boards, say goodbye, and privately question admins' actions. The gulag approach to moderation has apparently gone on for years there.I started out a fan of Mothering magazine, though I thought some of the articles were a little on the extreme side. The insistance that formula is dangerous and that fathers are less important to babies than mothers are, for instance. And the fears over vaccines that haven't had thimerosal in them for years, even though the thimerosal-autism link was thoroughly debunked years ago. But I enjoyed the articles on living more calmly, more thoughtfully.
Still, after reading the magazine and fora for a few years, I think O'Mara and her core readership are considerably more radical politically, and more anti-science, than all the organic produce and babywearing initially suggest. And I had not encountered maternalism before -- the idea that women are meant to be mothers, and that our *really* important role is as nurturers.
But it's the anti-science slant that would concern me most about this book. From the introduction on, doctors and medical professionals are cast as suspect. Hospitals and maternity wards have an air of doom about them. Safe and frequently helpful OB procedures are written about in a way that makes them look like procedures for confining cattle. (My own anaesthesiologist is going into my will, bless the man.) But the car that takes you to the hospital, the houses that homebirthed babies are born in, the internet on which Mothering communicates -- all are built with the science and engineering of their times, and those seem to be just fine.
The book discourages prenatal testing, even for parents who don't intend to abort a fetus with abnormalities, but just want time to prepare. The format is "soberly and quickly, here is the official information; at length, here are all the negatives about it; here's how to say no when people want you to get the tests."
There is little discussion of exercise. Concerns about excessive weight gain are brushed aside. This is dismaying, because it's no longer rare for women to gain 80 lbs with a singleton pregnancy, and high weight gain in pregnancy is a predictor of obesity in midlife; it also increases the risk of gestational diabetes and pre-eclampsia. I would recommend James Clapp's "Exercising Through Your Pregnancy".
The discussion of fatherhood also disturbs me. There's a "just for fathers" chapter in the book, reminiscent of the patronizing "just for girls" sections in older books. Again, the tone is strange to me; she tells fathers to explore their own relationships with their fathers, who are presumed to have been absent, distant, cold, and unaccepting of the young boy's emotional life, bonding only over baseball. In two or three pages there are instructions for how to "heal" their relationships with their fathers, dead or living.
You'll be warned about electromagnetic radiation from household appliances. Again, comprehensively debunked, but nevermind all that science. After all, there's all those children running around with genetic abnormalities induced by laser printers and hairdryers. (Right, there aren't. That's because the wavelength of household current is much too low to break chemical bonds.) But OK. It can't hurt to turn some appliances off. You'll want to look out for all that EM radiation from the sun and your own nervous system, though.
Finally, O'Mara says that science and medicine have forced on us the unnatural idea that pregnancy and birth are complicated. To me this is not only know-nothing but the denial of the extraordinary view we've had through biology. Physically, pregnancy and childbirth are complicated. Wonderfully complicated. The body does extraordinary things for nine months, and the progress of it is more complex than any construction we humans see.
It's all a pity, because in a more moderate form, I think O'Mara's got valuable messages. As malpractice pushes more and more OBs to order bed rest and C-sections -- the rate is still skyrocketing -- I think it's important to promote healthy, fit pregnancy that isn't fear-ridden, and support safe midwifed birth. But I fear O'Mara throws the baby out with the bathwater.
For older mothers, I'd recommend Kelly Shanahan's "Your Over-35 Week By Week Pregnancy Guide".
-- a leftish mother whose miracle child has so far survived anaesthesia, pitocin, hospital birth, formula, her own crib, antibiotics, the odd non-organic cup of milk, and her mother's employment.
(9 of 17 readers found this comment helpful)