Book Review: BABIES ARE NOT PIZZAS: THEY'RE BORN, NOT DELIVERED! by Rebecca Dekker

I first learned of Rebecca Dekker’s work at my doula training. That next summer, as I trained for a half marathon, I listened to episode after episode of the Evidence Based Birth podcast. I love and admire Rebecca’s work, as she uses her skills as a nurse and researcher to compile and review the most up-to-date research on important topics surrounding birth, and publishes them in ways that are easily accessible to the public through evidencebasedbirth.com. She’s covered topics such as natural induction techniques (I summarized a few in this post), the use of saline locks, circumcision, Vitamin K supplementation, doula support, and everything in between. In September 2019, I was beyond honored to present a workshop entitled "Birth Words: Choosing Our Language to Positively Impact the Birth Space" at the first-ever Evidence Based Birth conference in Lexington, KY.

When I found out she was writing a book, I was thrilled! The title of her book, Babies Are not Pizzas: They’re Born, Not Delivered, also shows that she’s passionate about using language that empowers birthing families. So am I! (For more on that, visit www.birthwords.com or listen to the Birth Words podcast on your podcast app. I even had her as a guest on my podcast in October!)

Babies Are Not Pizzas is a fairly quick read for a book filled with as much information as it is. That’s because Rebecca interweaves her research findings about birth with her own personal narrative—the story of how she became interested in the evidence about common birth practices, why she started sharing what she found, and the repercussions that ensued because of her research.

The story was intriguing, and the research she uncovered along the way was just as fascinating. Through the book, she tells about what the research shows about birth practices that are the safest and most effective, and why they’re not always practiced in hospitals. Reading this book re-acquainted me with the research and also gave me a better understanding of why institutions work the way that they do and why change can be difficult and slow. But it also re-inspired me to continue to be a change-maker in every sphere I can influence so that birthing families can have safe, empowering, positive experiences as they bring new life into the world.

I don’t want to give away her story, but I will say that I highly recommend getting your hands on a copy of this book! (There’s one in my lending library!)

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