About the Book

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.

Critical Praise

Don’t buy someone else’s story of who you are or what you should do to be a “Good Mother.” Amy Tuteur speaks truth with love to help you and your baby stay strong and healthy through childbirth and those precious early months in your new family’s life. — Susan Lemagie, MD, FACOG, Assistant Clinical Professor at University of Washington

Relying on solid science with a generous dash of common sense, Push Back should be a welcome breath of reassurance for women. Looking for the best way to ensure a healthy baby and a healthy mom? This book is for you. — Roy Benaroch, MD, FAAP, Assistant Adjunct Professor of Pediatrics at Emory University and blogger at The Pediatric Insider

Push Back, a serious, important, and ultimately reassuring response to today’s pervading parenting cultural norms. This book offers an alternative to parents desperately seeking a different sort of birth or parenting script; one that relies more on intellect than emotion; on love rather than biology. — Suzanne Barston CLC, creator of The Fearless Formula Feeder blog and author of Bottled Up: How the Way We Feed Babies Has Come to Define Motherhood, and Why It Shouldn't

“I highly recommend that every mother and mother-to-be read Push Back. The amount of pain, suffering, and guilt that I could have avoided and alleviated had only I understood the flaws of the natural parenting paradigm as explained so thoroughly by Dr. Tuteur is immeasurable.” — Leigh Fransen, Certified Professional Midwife, HonestMidwife.com

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Product Details

• ISBN: 9780062407337
• ISBN 10: 0062407333
• Imprint: Dey Street Books
• On Sale: 01/10/2017
• Trimsize: 5.310 in (w) x 8.000 in (h) x 0.860 in (d)
• Pages: 384
• List Price: $22.99
• BISAC1 : FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / Love & Romance
• BISAC2 : FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / Parenting / General
• BISAC3 : FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS: Parenting / Co-Parenting
• BISAC4 : HEALTH & FITNESS / Women's Health
• BISAC5 : HEALTH & FITNESS / Pregnancy & Childbirth
• BISAC6 : PSYCHOLOGY / Developmental / Child
• BISAC7 : PSYCHOLOGY / Emotions
• BISAC8 : SELF-HELP / Motivational & Inspirational
• BISAC9 : SELF-HELP / Personal Growth / General
• BISAC10 : SELF-HELP / Emotions