Word: cole
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...research, Cole taped interviews with groups of mothers and sent out hundreds of questionnaires. Unfortunately, her research included no unmarried mothers, no one who had had a woman obstetrician and no one who had had a baby at home. Still, her initial discovery applies to anyone in pregnancy: "Whatever the rules, each woman is bound to be the exception." Her book, which includes many viewpoints and possibilities, is a kind of print-version support group, and, as she suggests, should be read along with all the other how-to-have-a-baby books...
Many of those books are written by doctors and, while soberly reassuring and biologically informative, tend to address private qualms in a condescending manner. Cole's book is breezy, full of quotes from mothers, and reassuring. She points out, for example, the almost always overlooked distinction between being pregnant and actually being a mother. "While the two are biologically connected, emotionally they may have nothing in common at all." In other words, if you are eight months pregnant and find someone else's baby a repulsive blob, you have not necessarily made a horrible mistake...
These days, an informed father is essential, not least, in Cole's book, because he is the mother's backup in her struggles with the obstetrician. Male doctors are not exactly the heroes of this book. For all is not peaceful birthing rooms and tranquil, exultant deliveries, as older mothers once hoped. According to Cole, women who have placed their faith in the teachings of Fernand Lamaze, Frederick Leboyer, Elizabeth Bing and other advocates of natural childbirth will, almost automatically, find themselves in an adversary position when they enter the hospital. She writes: "The truth is that childbirth...
...things nobody seems to explain about having a baby is what happens to the mother immediately afterward. Cole is particularly good in her description of the upheaval: the physical exhaustion, bodily ruin, wetness, bewilderment, depression. "Conserve power," she advises. "Don't plan on dinner for twenty. Don't entertain too many relatives that are a drain on you. Don't - as I did - fly out to Santa Barbara for a week . . . Don't try to prove that having a baby isn't going to make a difference in your life," she warns...
That difference, the author steadily and hearteningly reminds her readers, is in the end worth all the prior trauma and trouble. To have a baby, she urges, read what you will and then do what seems best. What seems best is to start by reading Cole and heeding her sound counsel. To live with the baby, she says, "savor every morsel of motherhood as it comes along...