Rating: 
Summary: Realistic
Review: I found Wolf's book to be helpful and thoughtful, if not always extremely well written. This book is a guide to remind women of what they're getting into. It's not all happy sunshine as portrayed by some other texts.
It does remind women that they do have to fight for their rights as patients, since pregnancy is treated as a disease. People need to be reminded that their medical care is in their hands. This may seem obvious to some, but you cannot allow the doctors to dictate your medical care. It's a joint venture, not just in pregnancy but with any medical intervention.
Others have criticized it as being obvious or weak. Not all of us were raised with children in our lives. Some people do need to be told what to expect. Reading this book is like reading someone's diary: you get her individual experiences. It's not supposed to be a textbook, but a guide. And it guides very well.
The book will not be exactly right for everyone (which one is?). But I do recommend that people read this book to cover their bases. No one knows everthing about pregnancy and childbirth.
Rating: 
Summary: enlightening read--
Review: I would recommend this book. For anyone even thinking about having a baby or knows someone who is, this is worth buying because the information is interesting, new, and useful. At least provides a different perspective.
Rating: 
Summary: Not For the Politically Conservative Woman
Review: Although I agree strongly with Wolf's comments about the overuse and abuse of medical interventions such as episiotomies and C-Sections in childbirth, none of this information was new to me. I'd strongly recommend books such as "Birthing From Within" by Pam England, et al., to expectant mothers. I found Wolf's book to be thoughtful and well-written, a good read, but ultimately I strongly disagreed with her conclusions. As an expectant mother myself, and someone who prizes independence of thought, autonomy, and personal responsibility, I'd already made the decision to hire a midwife for home birth, prior to reading Wolf's book. While I see flaws in the current medicalized birth model, I don't expect the government to fix every problem in my life. Personally, I'd rather pay a couple grand out of pocket and choose my own way of birthing, than pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in increased taxes over my lifetime to have an undoubtedly more flawed national healthcare plan. I found it interesting that Wolf, an obviously intelligent woman, twice found herself giving birth by means of C-Section in the intrusive, medical environment she criticizes. While I appreciate her vulnerability in admitting this, she comes off as weak and lacking in self-determination. Perhaps this, in a nutshell, hints at the difference between conservative and liberal women.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Read!
Review: Read this book openmindedly. Don't let it scare you. It is informative and knowledgeable. It is true that Naomi Wolfe does whine a bit...so, roll your eyes but keep reading. She does make you think twice before you step into a hospital to have a baby without asking questions first. It completely changed my perceptions of hospitals and doctors. I'm sure Ms. Wolfe would agree that if she helped open one person's eyes to the everyday practices that goes on in hospitals, then it was worth writing this book. I am that one person. This book changed everything for me. It helped me make informed decisions about my childbirth experience. Do your research...and start by reading this book!
Rating: 
Summary: Duh
Review: It stretches credulity to imagine that Naomi Wolf was unaware of any number of the issues her book covers.Gosh, North American doctors tend to medicalise pregnancy, labour, and delivery. Golly, pregnancy really gets a woman's nesting instinct perking. Jiminy crickets, being a mother really changes a person's life. Gee whiz, motherhood is seriously undervalued in North American society. Heavens to Betsy, women generally end up being the primary caregiver. Gracious, it's hard to be a mother **and** have a career. I mean, duh. While it's true that no one is fully prepared for motherhood, Wolf ranges, wide-eyed yet uninsightful, across well-travelled terrain, displaying a disheartening ignorance of the reproductive aspect of womens' lives. She presents as fresh and new phenomena and experiences that have been widely chronicled and trenchantly observed by far more perceptive writers than she, and she does it all in a prose that is both breathless and cloying. It is shocking that an educated woman, a proud feminist, no less, could have been as thoroughly uninformed about pregnancy, childbirth, and mothering as Wolf apparently was. All in all, a silly book penned by an uninspiring scribe.
Rating: 
Summary: Whiney drivel
Review: I have always thought of Naomi Wolf as a feminist icon for people of my generation - somewhere between boomers and gen Xers. But I am really disappointed in this new book. I bought the book two months postpartum, looking for a modern feminist perspective on pregnancy, birth and new motherhood because I did agree with her basic premise: pregnancy and new motherhood is isolating and undersupported in our society. However, it's clear Naomi is a spoiled silver spooned upper class woman that just needed something to complain about. Her experience with medical care and new motherhood was not mine, and I live in a city not known to have good medical care or be "family friendly." In fact some of her "experiences" and anecdotes are so far-fetched and clique that I suspect they were made up or embellished to sell books. She makes outlandish statements and quotes "studies" that are of questionable reliability. It's as if she took the most extreme conclusion and THEN looked for a way to support that the problems were really that bad. She did not recognize that many issues regarding pregnancy, birth, and new motherhood are subtle and subject to black and white. She tries to create problems that aren't there just to be "controversial" or better yet, "revolutionary". For example, she whines on and on about the medical intervention of pregnancy - how fetal monitors and epidurals are bad things. What? First of all don't get them if you don't want them. But she would be the first to sue if the doctor doesn't "intervene" with a fetal monitor and something goes wrong with baby. Or if you don't want an epidural -fine - suffer through it - but don't blame the medical profession. She complains about how tough and sorry her "new motherhood" experience was because she had a nanny helping her bathe her newborn and the nanny after all isn't family but eek! a stranger. Most moms should be so lucky to have any help. She goes on to suggest that the government should pay stay at home moms, and/or new moms should get at least a year off work - paid, etc. I am a new mom but found her views extreme and not realistic (what non-parents are going to want to pay taxes to subsidize me to have 10 kids and stay home with my kids). Furthermore, if her biggest complaint is she has to have "a nanny" help her bathe the baby, she is doing well. I also didn't think it was very well written. A lot of controversial statements without a lot of analysis.
Rating:
Summary: DON'T READ THIS BOOK IF YOU ARE PREGNANT
Review: This was the worst book I read while I was pregnant. I actually didn't get throught the whole thing, because it brought me to tears, and my husband took it away from me. Take heart ladies-if you are pregnant things will not be nearly as bad as Wolf makes them out to be. My hospital experience was wonderful, not the nightmarish experience she talks about. In fact, none of the horrible things she described happened to me. Skip this book, read what to expect when you're expecting instead!
Rating:
Summary: Re-Inventing the Wheel
Review: What did Naomi Wolf expect? Seemingly oblivious to a rich legacy of literature on the travails (and the bliss) of motherhood, Woolf has re-invented the wheel. Adrienne Rich, Jane Lazarre, Susan Griffin and Alice Walker said it all, far more convincingly, with by-far greater passion and wisdom, twenty-five years ago.
Rating:
Summary: Stupid, wrong, childish and dangerous
Review: Two comments on this: 1) When my first daughter was born, it was a C-section. My OB-GYN had been a nice, friendly guy up until the minute the procedure began, and suddenly he turned into Adolf Hitler. He was barking orders, being rude, and yelling at people for being slow or not anticipating his next need. It was an extremely tense, dead serious birth experience, not at all memorable or comforting. It was not anything like what I'd been told childbirth should be. And I was so glad. Listen, folks. A C-section is a MAJOR SURGICAL PROCEDURE. The operating room had fifteen people in it, and there was no joking, no smalltalk. It was all business, which is what it should have been. When he was done, there was blood and amniotic fluid all over the place, and I and my new daughter were fine. That's what I came in there for. When I'm giving birth, I want someone there who knows what he's doing (this guy was one of the best OB/GYNS in Philadelphia), not someone who's my friend. If something goes wrong during childbirth, it goes very wrong very fast. Getting all whiny, like Naomi Wolf does, about the quality of her birth experience, is like dwelling on the wedding instead of the actual marriage. All I, or any sensible woman, should want is a healthy baby, a healthy me, and a lot of trained help in case we have problems. I have the rest of my daughter's life to create memories. 2) Last night, the evening before Mother's Day, I was up with my husband from 2:30 AM until dawn with a screaming, colicky baby. Motherhood is hard. It's really hard, often unpleasant, and like any blessing, it's decidedly mixed. I do not need Naomi Wolf to tell me that. It's unbelievably depressing and cynical to think that she's making vast amounts of money by stating the obvious, and acting as if she has some wisdom to impart about the meaning of an experience that is the single most universal one humans have.
Rating:
Summary: Superb book about motherhood - unjustly maligned
Review: I think this is a SUPERB book about motherhood. I really can't fathom why so many reviewers find it incomprehensible or too personal or whatever little faults they're reading into it. I think that if you are a thinking woman and a mother (or mother to be), you will find this book extraordinary. It really meshed with my own experiences. Becoming a mother can be a traumatic experience in today's society. Naomi Wolf does a wonderful job of delving into the wider social issues surrounding her personal experience of motherhood. I think this book is TERRIFIC.
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