Spontaneous Creation: 101 Reasons Not to Have Your Baby in a Hospital

SPONTANEOUS CREATION

REVIEWS

Midwifery Today
(March 2006)

"Spontaneous Creation: 101 Reasons Not To Have Your Baby in a Hospital, Vol. 1 (e-book), by Jock Doubleday, 2005. (Ojai, California: Spontaneous Creation Publishing; donation, 350 pages.)

"This first part of a two-volume gem of an e-book is a very engaging read about (as the title tells us) reasons not to have your baby in the hospital. It should be required reading for mothers-to-be, long before they get pregnant and take that first step into the medicalized world of obstetrics.

"For example, what good parent would knowingly choose to have their baby born in a place in which it is six times as likely to die as at home? Or where the mother herself has at least a two times greater chance of dying? The author lays out for us, mincing no words, why hospitals are such dangerous places. Even if you think you know all of this already, consider the book for those friends and family members who still believe in the dominant US cultural childbirth paradigm.

"To order the e-book send your tax-deductible donation of any amount to: Natural Woman, Natural Man, Inc."

TESTIMONIALS

"With his trademark wit and wisdom, Jock Doubleday has written a superb guidebook for parents-to-be, highlighting the risks of routine medical treatments (including hospitalization) for mothers and babies, and the safety and joy of low-technology options in childbirth.

"Spontaneous Creation is well laid out and easy to absorb, with ample medical evidence to support the many reasons for avoiding hospital birth.

"As a homebirth mother of four, I hope that this book will help to correct our culture’s vast misunderstanding about the safety of out-of-hospital birth and the underplayed risks of routine medical care.

"Thank you Jock: Spontaneous Creation will inspire many parents to make gentle choices for themselves and their babies."

Sarah J. Buckley, MD
Author
Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering: The wisdom and science of gentle choices in pregnancy, birth, and parenting
www.sarahjbuckley.com

"The last few years have seen the publication of a number of books which have set out to show the fallacy of the belief that the hospital is the best place to give birth, and Jock Doubleday's Spontaneous Creation: 101 Reasons Not to Have Your Baby in a Hospital can proudly take its place among them.

"This book offers a comprehensive review of all of the reasons which render hospitals a less than ideal option for the majority of women, and a couple of things set this book apart for me.

"One of them is the thoroughness of the discussion; each area is considered from a number of angles, and the author has drawn from a variety of disciplines to inform his work.

"Secondly -- and, as someone who reads a lot of books, this one made me particularly happy! -- the discussion is seasoned with imaginative and witty asides, such as the comment that involving obstetricians in all normal births is analogous to asking firemen to spend their days rescuing cats from trees!

"Great work, Jock, and here's hoping that your book helps these important issues to come to the attention of more women, who can then make the choices that are right for them, rather than the choices that are right for the establishment."

Sara Wickham
Midwife, lecturer, researcher and author of Sacred Cycles: The Spiral of Women's Well-being
www.withwoman.co.uk