A review by lk222
Like a Mother: A Feminist Journey Through the Science and Culture of Pregnancy by Angela Garbes

5.0

*This is not a surreptitious pregnancy announcement.* Nor am I planning to be pregnant in the very near future. But I do plan to be *one day.* & regardless of my plans, I have a body that is designed to carry a baby, which is an experience I imagine as an incredibly-cool-but-also-nauseating alien encounter with my own body. Author @angelsgarbes & seem to be on the same page.

Like A Mother is not a baby book. It’s a fascinating & well researched “resource rooted in emerging science & real-life stories” that should be required reading. Garbes jumps into the origins of women’s healthcare with the removal of black midwives once responsible for birthing ~half of American babies & their replacement with white, male doctors who admitted to never actually attending a birth. Did you know one voyeuristic king is (at least partially) responsible for today’s unnatural birthing position? Or that having a doula (or quickly-trained female friend) accompany a birth typically reduces labor by more than one (excruciating) hour? Or that the Hmong people see the placenta as a jacket that the dead must recollect before reuniting with their ancestors? Or that oxytocin can turn a romantic evening into a comical disaster.

Garbes describes her own experiences with abortion, miscarriage, pregnancy, birth & new motherhood with intimate candidness. She’s also quite funny. She’s inclusive in her writing, sharing her own experience as a Filipina woman in a healthcare industry that prioritizes white bodies. She welcomes trans men & non-binary child bearers into her readership, acknowledging the trauma many feel during the pregnancy & birthing process. She also discusses exactly what I’ve felt has been missing from *the canon* of motherhood discussion: the right to mourn your pre-baby self & a dissonance that many women, including Garbes, feel between their pre & post-baby identities.

Garbes does not skip over the emotional rewards included in the ad campaign for motherhood, but she describes them with a new voice that is bolstered by science, history, experience, & refreshing frankness. She underscores the ludicrosity of minimizing women’s health & the many ways that new research of the pregnant body could lead to lifesaving benefits for all humans. It’s a fascinating book that I recommend to literally everyone.