Get Me Out: A History of Childbirth from the Garden of Eden to the Sperm Bank

by Randi Hutter Epstein

Book Overview

In Get Me Out, the insatiably curious Randi Hutter Epstein journeys through history, fads, and fables, and to the fringe of science, where audacious researchers have gone to extreme measures to get healthy babies out of mothers. Here is an entertaining must-read--and an enlightening celebration of human life.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393064581
• ISBN13: 9780393064582
• Release Date: January 2010
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 302 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.9" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Dr. Epstein delivers!

This history of the last few hundred years of childbirth trends had all the makings of an irreverent romp through the messy business of baby-making. There are moments of hilarity and charm, but author Randi Epstein is smart enough to realize that much of the history of interventions in the childbearing business is built on untimely death and horrifying suffering. The curse of Eve -- by which theologians blithely assigned the pain of childbirth to the disobedience of our prodigal mother -- is a ready reality in this age of antiseptics and ultrasounds. Women still die bearing children, perhaps not as much in the industrialized world as elsewhere. But all must deal with the evolutionary tradeoff between big-headed babies and narrow birth canals that allow upright walking. While gently mocking old trends (male doctors were once banned from actually watching childbirth and had to grope around blindly under sheets) Epstein is almost too fair when it comes to the ironies of modern childbirth trends. Those who choose elective C-sections vie with the hardy souls who insist on birthing without meds at all. The western cultural bias toward individuality in all things vies with the proven track record of medical practitioners whose experience with thousands of mothers gives them a leg up on the less experienced. Epstein is also fair about the midwife v. obstetrician controversy, acknowledging the disdain with which men looked down on women practitioners, but realizing that the midwives were hardly the font of natural knowledge that simpler histories might suggest. Epstein also bends over backward when telling of Dr. Marion Sims, the doctor who perfected techniques for repairing vaginal fistulas by injuring slave women, then sewing them up -- all without anesthetics. Was Sims a monster or a messiah? Epstein's answer avoids an easy solution. "Get me out" depicts the myriad ways in which western women choose to become pregnant and to give birth. It's a book that (without saying so in so many words) conveys the suffering and pain inherent in the process of bringing new human life into the world. Captivating.

Very Interesting

I saw an ad for this book in a magazine and it sounded interesting. It is filled with the history of childbirth. I'm only a few chapters in but it was well worth the purchase so far.

So much fun!

My best friend is training to be a midwife, and my other best friend is in med school to become an obgyn. Both absolutely adored this and told me I had to read it. Even I, who have no children and am not training to do anything involving childbirth, couldn't put this down. I learned so much, and laughed out loud. This should be required reading for all women. And come to think of it, men too. Absolutely fabulous.