Rating: 
Summary: Great - essential reading
Review: I loved this book. It was an enlightening and refreshing look at the philosophical and practical aspects of Westernised childbirth. Parents-to-be should read it and question the assumptions made about childbirth. All health professionals who provide care to pregnant women (and their partners) should read it. It should be on the undergraduate reading list of all medical, nursing and midwifry schools.To a non-USA reader some of the book is not so applicable to one's own country - but the general thrust and energy of this stimulating book speaks for everywhere where childbirth happens!
Rating: 
Summary: Does not make a good shower gift!
Review: I was given this book as a shower gift. The giver apparently didn't know I have a scheduled C-section planned, for medical reasons, with the full support and encouragement of my midwife (who does almost all of my prenatal care), OB, and specialist. As can be expected, the only things this book has to say about C-sections are negative, and how to avoid one. This does not help me in planning for my birth and recovery, and serves to make me feel frustrated and unsupported. (Not to mention all the negative things the author conveys about women who plan C-sections). I admit I haven't read this book fully to comment on the rest of it, but what I read was upsetting enough not to view the rest!
Rating: 
Summary: Instilled confidence in my natural ability to birth a baby
Review: I was terrified for years at the thought of having a baby. Many people just seemed to have endless horror stories. After reading this book along with some other resources, I now have confidence that birth is a normal physiological process of a woman's body - something not to be dreaded but to be respected and prepared for with loving support. One must approach this book with an open mind because it is definitely not what you are used to hearing from the medical world today. However, I feel so educated and enlightened after reading it- more than if I had simply entrusted myself fully to a doctor's care. Her comments in the introduction state that readers may not agree with every point in the book - but in any case, women should take control to educate themselves and research issues about pregnancy and labor so they are not passive and totally relinquish control to someone else (which can cause more pain and complications). I especially liked reading the stories of a woman's birth experience from ancient tribes to the 1800s to modern day. It really helped give me a flavor for how society has changed its approach to birth depending upon the culture of the time, and how popular cultures have unfortunately contributed to poor birthing practices. I only wish the book had more information about water birthing as it has become more widely known that this practice has had incredibly positive effects on women in labor, including those who choose to have their baby at a hospital or birthing center.
Rating:
Summary: Instilled confidence in my natural ability to birth a baby
Review: I was terrified for years at the thought of having a baby. Many people just seemed to have endless horror stories. After reading this book along with some other resources, I now have confidence that birth is a normal physiological process of a woman's body - something not to be dreaded but to be respected and prepared for with loving support. One must approach this book with an open mind because it is definitely not what you are used to hearing from the medical world today. However, I feel so educated and enlightened after reading it- more than if I had simply entrusted myself fully to a doctor's care. Her comments in the introduction state that readers may not agree with every point in the book - but in any case, women should take control to educate themselves and research issues about pregnancy and labor so they are not passive and totally relinquish control to someone else (which can cause more pain and complications). I especially liked reading the stories of a woman's birth experience from ancient tribes to the 1800s to modern day. It really helped give me a flavor for how society has changed its approach to birth depending upon the culture of the time, and how popular cultures have unfortunately contributed to poor birthing practices. I only wish the book had more information about water birthing as it has become more widely known that this practice has had incredibly positive effects on women in labor, including those who choose to have their baby at a hospital or birthing center.
Rating:
Summary: Earthshaking when it first came out; now even better
Review: I'm a midwife and an author of a midwifery memoir, BABY CATCHER: Chronicles of a Modern Midwife. When Suzanne Arms' first edition of this book was released, it rattled the bars of the cage of OB departments everywhere. Nurses, midwives, and women lauded SA and sang her praises, while traditional-minded OBs hid in the corners and prayed their own patients wouldn't get hold of The Book. I believe that S. Arms practically fired the cannon that started the Natural Childbirth and Birth Center wars. Thank god.
But, of course, doctors are far more powerful (not to mention lawyers and the insurance industry), so ultimately they prevailed, with the result that Cesarean rates increased, epidural rates skyrocketed, lawsuits increased, the $$$ amounts of lawsuit awards went out the roof, and patient satisfaction rates plunged. Partly as a result of that and their own culpability in setting up impossible expectations ('just trust me, do as I say, and you'll have a healthy baby'), many OBs now find themselves leaving their specialty because of unaffordable insurance premiums - and whole towns are without the services of an obstetrician.
So this newest edition of this desperately needed book comes out not a moment too soon. Buy it, read it, pass it on to a friend. Women have GOT to take back their birthright before we breed an entire generation of women who don't trust their own bodies intrinsic wisdom of How to Birth.
Rating:
Summary: Anxiety Producer
Review: If one book were written to convince the world of the medicalization of child birth, Suzanne Arms has done it. I would and have recommended this book to anyone thinking of having a child. This is the truth about birthing. Why hospitals should be avoided, steps the AMA has taken to insure that the mother has a minimal amount of control of the process, why you should make your own choices, what they are, and how to make them. Absolutely wonderful.
Rating:
Summary: the truth about birth
Review: If one book were written to convince the world of the medicalization of child birth, Suzanne Arms has done it. I would and have recommended this book to anyone thinking of having a child. This is the truth about birthing. Why hospitals should be avoided, steps the AMA has taken to insure that the mother has a minimal amount of control of the process, why you should make your own choices, what they are, and how to make them. Absolutely wonderful.
Rating:
Summary: Objective and candid
Review: Immaculate Deception II is a fine follow-up to the original. Suzanne Arms writes this book with the same finesse and objective grace offered in the original. As a future Nurse-midwife, I am pleased to find a work that provides balanced facts for the psychology that surrounds westernized medicine and healthcare concerning pregnancy and childbirth. The author does not attack medicine but rather engages the reader in thought provoking facts and fascinating details. The book is well written and is a must-read for anyone who is considering a health care occupation.
Rating:
Summary: Anxiety Producer
Review: In the middle of my third trimester, someone gave me this book to read. Unsuspecting, and not realizing what the book was about except that it discussed the birthing process, I did read it. All the book discussed was how awful the birthing process is these days (basically since the time we had doctors - as opposed to shamans and wise women) and how not to trust your doctor(s) and the hospital. I have a wonderful doctor and I did not appreciate being told not to trust him. He is going to be delivering my baby! I need to be able to trust him at such a time - if only to reduce the anxiety etc that I will be going through! This is probably a good book for OB/GYNs, midwives, labor nurses, and the woman who is trying to decide where and how to give birth. Not for someone who already knows that she wants to use her doctor and go to the hospital!!! All this book did for me was increase my nervousness as a first timer by 100%! Not what you need at such an emotional time in your life. You need to be calm and have faith that all will be well and that the people in whom you have entrusted your care, will do a good job and give you no more and no less than the care you need.
Rating: 
Summary: one-sided and alarmist
Review: There is value to this book in that it does expose a lot of the problems with modern hospital birthing procedures in the United States. But I found the whole tone of the book to be so black and white -- good midwives/bad, bad doctors -- that I had a hard time swallowing what she had to say. Also her idealized portrait of birthing methods in primitive society seems overly romanticized. I didn't like her fictionalized accounts of births in various cultures -- especially that of the imaginary primitive tribe see spends pages describing. She is not an anthropologist, yet she presents the information as though she as spent time living among these people. And she describes a circumcision as though it were genital mutilation. I think a lot of what she has to say is true, especially about the poor treatment and patronizing attitude towards pregnant women by obstricians through the ages. But I am I also sure that plenty of women have satisfying birth experiences in hospitals using epidurals, whose children have grown up healty, happy and emotionally and physically unscarred -- even if they have been circumsized. This book would be a lot more convincing if it were more balanced
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