Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

A Harvard-trained obstetrician-gynecologist, prominent blogger, and author of the classic How Your Baby Is Born delivers a timely, important, and sure to be headline-making expose that shines a light on the natural parenting movement and the multimillion-dollar industry behind it.

The natural parenting movement praises the virtues of birth without medical interference, staunchly advocates breastfeeding for all mothers, and hails attachment parenting. Once the exclusive province of the alternative lifestyle, natural parenting has gone mainstream, becoming a lucrative big business today.

But those who do not subscribe to this method are often made to feel as if they are doing their children harm. Dr. Amy Tuteur understands their apprehensions. "Parenting quickly feels synonymous with guilt. And of late, there is no bigger arena for this pervasive guilt than childbirth." As a medical professional with a long career in obstetrics and gynecology and as the mother of four children, Tuteur is no stranger to the insurmountable pressures and subsequent feelings of blame and self-condemnation that mothers experience during their children's early years. The natural parenting movement, she contends, is not helping them raise their children better. Instead, it capitalizes on their uncertainty, manipulating parents when they are most vulnerable.

In Push Back, she chronicles the movement's history from its roots to its modern practices, incorporating her own experiences as a mother and successful OB-GYN with original research on the latest in childbirth science. She also reveals the dangerous and overtly misogynistic motives of some of its proponents--conservative men who sought to limit women's control and autonomy. As she debunks, one by one, the guilt-inducing myths of natural birth and parenting, Dr. Tuteur empowers women to embrace the method of childbirth that is right for them, while reassuring all parents that the most important thing they can do is love and care for their children.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Introduction (p. 1)
• Part I Subverting the Science
• Chapter 1 Natural Childbirth Is Nothing Like Childbirth in Nature (p. 15)
• Chapter 2 Interventions Are Preventive Medicine (p. 45)
• Chapter 3 There Is No Benefit to Refusing Pain Relief (p. 73)
• Chapter 4 The Right C-section Rate (p. 95)
• Chapter 5 Breast Is Not Always Best (p. 121)
• Chapter 6 There's No Science That Supports Attachment Parenting (p. 161)
• Part II The Natural Parenting Industry
• Chapter 7 Who Hijacked Childbirth? (p. 193)
• Chapter 8 The Commodification of Birth (p. 223)
• Chapter 9 The Business of Breastfeeding (p. 243)
• Part III A Sexist Philosophy of Privilege
• Chapter 10 How Natural Parenting Is Anti-feminist (p. 261)
• Chapter 11 Women Do Not Have Other Ways of Knowing (p. 289)
• Chapter 12 Sanctimommics and the Joys of Shaming (p. 301)
• Conclusion Push Back Against the Guilt of Natural Parenting (p. 333)
• Acknowledgments (p. 335)
• Notes (p. 337)
• Image Credits (p. 359)
• Index (p. 361)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Look out, ladies. This title is either the one we've been waiting for or the one we're going to despise. Obstetrician-gynecologist Tuteur takes her medical experience, research, and mothering advocacy to a soon-to-be contentious level in a book that questions three of the most health-predictive "choices" pregnant women make: natural childbirth, breastfeeding, and attachment parenting (an emphasis on physical closeness between mother and infant). Here the author aims to "release women from the guilt trap created by the natural parenting industry," which likens the idealization of childbirth to a "paleofantasy." Arguing that there is "no benefit to refusing pain relief" and boldly claiming that there is "no evidence for any long-term health benefits of breastfeeding," Tuteur will wage war with even C-section, formula-feeding mothers when she claims that "attachment parenting.is the feminine mystique writ large." -VERDICT This important book will undoubtedly receive much media attention and spark debate among parents, feminists, and the medical community. Fans and -critics alike will be intrigued by Tuteur's ideas. © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.