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Me:"Wow! Your Tina Cassidy aren’t you? I actually just read your book, how wonderful to bump into you at the airport like this! Thanks so much for writing “Birth the Surprising History of how we are born.” The way you portrayed birth throughout history as constantly changing persuaded me to believe that even today with the technology our culture has we shouldn’t trust our practices.

Tina:"Really, what led you to read the book; it was the cute baby on the cover that attracted you wasn’t it? So which parts were most relevant and memorable to you?"

Me: "Well, in the last third of the book you focused on the history of modern day controversies in the birth discourse, which helped strengthen the relevance of the first 2/3rds of the book, examples of these are…

1. The role of the father in pregnancy.  pg 200

2. What happens to the after birth and the ingestion of the placenta pg 220

3. The bonding process between mother and baby and how it can affect their relationship down the road pg 228

Tina: that’s wonderful that you were able to get so much insight out of the book, most people I talk to can’t recite such depth. Is there anything that could have been done to make the book better or possibly more effective to fulfill its mission?

Me:"Well, let's be clear your writing aimed to provide historical analysis from the perspective of a person who has an intro level knowledge of birth, for the book-reading-public to better understand pregnancy & birth in our culture. Given that, the best advice I would give for a 2nd edition of the text would be to incorporate modern-day birth stories in order to maintain relevance and share your opinion of the historical evidence after sharing a non biased excerpt in order to maintain controversy or possibly, instead of stating your own opinion you could offer an outrageous alternative view point to the block of history that was previously presented. Even with these criticisms I appreciate the work you put in to your book because it uncovers the nightmarish history of childbirth and shows how it is correlated with how birth is dealt with now in this day and age. Particularly your book has made me think more about if having a water birth is the right choice for me & if I should take up a career in midwifery in low income areas. In fact, I'm likely to try to make pregnant women I know aware of you book, “The Surprising History of how we are Born" as a result of your book."

Tina: "Thanks! Talking to you made me realize how helpful my book was to others, it makes me proud that my personal interest was able to cause such a positive effect on others.