REVIEW - POP - 50 AMAZING SECRETS TO A SUCCESSFUL LABOR & DELIVERY OR C-SECTION

Title: POP - 50 Amazing Secrets to a successful Labour & Delivery or C-Section

Author: Pamela Peery

BLURB from Goodreads

POP: 50 Amazing Secrets to a Successful Labor & Delivery or C-section is a collection of advice from new moms who just gave birth. Over 10 years in the making, it is the best advice that more than 80 women had to offer, in their own words. It represents real moms reaching across time and space to hold the hand of pregnant women everywhere. 

Small and portable, this new, must-have childbirth handbook gives fantastic advice, surprising tips & secret tricks that actually work. And the best thing is – it can be read in 3 hours.

It’s time to come out of the dark about having babies. This is the untold story of labor and delivery or C-sections, from women who describe what they wish they had known earlier.

Laugh with other women, and know a little more about what’s going to happen when that big day finally comes!

INITIAL THOUGHTS

With this book I was curious to see what tips would be included and if any of them would have been relative to my labour with my daughter eighteen years ago. I fancied a change of pac ad genre and I do like to review some factual books as well as all the great fiction thats out there. Hey! maybe a soon to be mum, or even dad as the book contains things dad's should know too may see my review of this book and go ahead and buy the book and find it helpful.

I must add I love the cover with O being a dummy and also the "POP" being a name for dad too. It's a great play on words and imagery.

MY REVIEW

I saw this book on Netgalley and was looking for a factual book to read, nothing too heavy but still informative, so I requested and was accepted for this one in exchange for my honest review.

So this book is a kind of handbook for child birth only this one is written by and contributed to by real ordinary women and their experiences and tips rather than some Dr having wrote a stuffy kind of book, you know what I mean, like a male Dr has wrote who has never gone through labour himself!

So the book explains the different ways that labour can go from totally natural no pain relief, just breathing through the contraction, to epidurals, to emergency C-Sections when things aren't going so well for baby and he/she needs to be out now!

The book contains tips on what to take with you, for example, a camera. thats a goo one because then dad or birthing partner can take pics in the first few minutes/hours of birth. I admit I totally remembered to take the camera but when I got to the hospital it was late and the nurses took my bag away to the ward I would go on after giving birth and yep the camera went away with the bag!

There's also tips such as to take your nursing cushion with you to get used to using one with your child when breastfeeding from the beginning, rather than learning with a hospital one then going home and changing to your own which may not be the same size/shape.

I think the book is written with american types of births in mind this showed up more in the chapter of who you have in the room when giving birth chapter. In the UK you are usually allowed one person, which is usually the dad. In the book one lady had her mum, her step-mum. her husband and her husbands mum!

Then there was an incident of one lady asking who all the people in the delivery suite were and she was told they were students and she was in fact in a teaching hospital!

Though personally I do empathize with that lady, whilst I was in the last stages of labour there was a knock on the door and a nurses head popped round and asked if he and his students could come in and watch! My midwife answered a snappy "No, can't you see we are busy close the door it's drafty for my patient!" To be honest at the time the nurse had popped his head round had I had the breath to do so I think I would have shouted If this baby will come out quicker you can sell tickets, bring everyone in" . 

As you will no doubt have gathered by now some of the tales in this book that lead into the great tips are quite funny. Also it states in the book that certain things should only be done under medical supervision.

So did I enjoy the book? Yes I snickered and giggled at a few of the tips as well as thinking wow what a great idea at some of them too. Would I recommend the book? Yes I think the way the book is presented could definitely ease the minds of soon to be mums or dads and help them be more organised for the event. Would I read another book in the same/similar subject to this? Yes, I think it would be great if Pamela wrote one with tips for when you are bringing baby home and getting into a routine. Would I read other books by this Author? Yes, I enjoyed her light-hearted yet serious way of presenting this book.