What I love about this book:
-There were sources placed in the book, all over the chapters, and I found this rather useful.
-I learned several new things that I did not know before.
-When I learned something new in this book, it sparked a question that made me google even more information that wasn’t placed in the book.

What I didn’t like about this book:
-It felt like the authors got a bit repetitive with certain things and it dragged a little bit.
-I read 80% of this book. There were chapters that didn’t appeal to me and I just didn’t see them as useful to be honest.

Overall feelings:
I really enjoyed this book. I give it 3.5 stars. I don’t have kids yet but this book helped me gain some knowledge about pain relief options for birth. I plan on having a natural birth, but it’s nice to have the knowledge on pain relief methods, if I ever was to change my mind.

Simple layout, clear writing on options available for pain elimination as well as pain management. Quick read and empowering - knowledge is power!

For any woman seeking to learn more about her options of pain relief during labor/delivery, this book gives very helpful information about the main options. It describes what types of medicines are available, how they work, how they are administered, what their side effects are, etc. It also discusses other options if you prefer not to use medications. Some of the methods covered are hypnobirthing, waterbirthing, use of the birthing ball, etc. The nice part of this book is that it allows you to make you own decisions. It gives perspectives of a variety of healthcare practitioners as well as women who were happy or regretful of their decision to use the interventions.
It's a very good book for the overview of options available.

This book was written by an anesthesiologist at a major hospital, and when you're an anesthesiologist, everyone looks like they could use an epidural. The book definitely takes the position that other than for scheduled c-sections (where spinals are used), the epidural is the preferred choice in pain relief. And having received an epidural with each of my prior deliveries, I'm apt to agree. However, there are other options, and the author discussed them as well. I do wish he'd gone a bit more into depth with some that seemed to work really well (hypnosis?) because I wonder if the awesome-pain-free-birth-with-hypnosis thing was an anomaly or more common.

Mentions the need for flexibility (like if you go to deliver and the anesthesiologist is on-call but not on-site) in waiting for pain relief or in deciding to NOT accept pain relief. Book is also a little outdated (published 2006), in that he states only 25% of US deliveries are cesarean, while nowadays the number is north of 30%.

Also, it may have been my copy, but this book was missing more periods than the typical pregnant woman. Just less-than-stellar editing there.

This book provided a good summary of ALL the pain management techniques (natural and medical) for childbirth along with the research-based pros/cons of each. It's definitely skewed more towards the medical perspective, but in a way that didn't pass judgement on natural methods. The book was published in 2006, so obviously not the most up-to-date research, but very helpful nonetheless. This book really helped me make decisions regarding pain relief for birth. It also has helped me feel much more informed about all the options available so that I can go into the birthing process with a well-thought out plan while simultaneously being open-minded and flexible. Ultimately, I recommend it to anyone wanting to be informed about all the options out there for childbirth.

Despite the annoying/stupid title, was one of the more balanced books on childbirth. The author is an anesthesiologist at a major hospital, so obviously has as much of a bias as all of the natural birthing books, but there is a definite effort to represent all options for pain relief. The only snarky bit that comes through is the con listed for some interventions - something about "not good for the mother who wishes to use no more advanced technology than the massage setting on a showerhead." I'd say the main things that I took from this are the info on different kinds of epidurals, that getting a one-time shot to avoid an epidural could actually expose an infant to more medication, and the point that in no other medical situation are people asked to simply tolerate pain or discouraged from wanting pain relief. Like any book, just a starting point for a conversation with one's physician, but a different perspective than many of the childbirth books.

I thought this book would outline some pain management techniques but it is not a how-to, just a comparison of different methods of pain relief. For what it is, it's pretty good, but I was looking for something more.

This would be a great one to read if you are pregnant with your first child. You just have no idea what to expect, and this book tried to be as objective as possible while answering the question: "How much does childbirth hurt?"
I've read quite a few books about natural childbirth, which all pretty much espouse the idea that childbirth doesn't have to be painful, and that "pain" is caused by our expectation of pain and fear, which causes tightening of muscles (instead of the necessary relaxation) which causes pain, which increases our fear, and the cycle continues. This makes tons of sense when you've never given birth before. Now that I've done so naturally, I don't buy the idea that the pain I experienced was a result of tension and fear. I'm pretty confident it was a result of my birth canal and perineum being stretched out to freakish proportions in order to accommodate the passage of a bowling ball-sized baby.
Anyway, I liked that this book tried to be realistic without freaking you out. Furthermore, there are many, many different pain-relief techniques discussed (traditional as well as alternative) and a very good synopsis of each is provided, along with personal experiences of moms who have used those techniques. Since this is my fourth baby (and, as I said, I've read a lot of other books on the subject) I gleaned very little new information. But I still think it was a generally well done book. I don't know that it can guarantee you "easy labor" as the title suggests, but it will definitely give you a lot of information that could help.

Helpful and informative of the general ongoings of labor. Not too deep and not quite surface level content. Not going to be the only labor book I read.

Great book for a balanced perspective on labor pain management for either natural birth or birth with medical pain interventions. The book provides an excellent overview of all options available, in addition to evidence-based medical information-- something I seriously found lacking in other books on labor and delivery. It doesn't have the patronizing, condescending "hey girlfriend, look, you're pregnant, isn't that just darling?" tone that many other L&D books have; rather, it provides factual medical information as well as perspectives of medical professionals ranging from OB-GYNs, nurse anesthesiologists, and midwives to doulas, including a helpful section of birth stories from these professionals who have gone through it themselves. The book does not take any position on the natural birth vs. medical intervention debate, but lays out all the facts and allows the reader to decide for herself. Coming from a public health academic background, I really appreciated all of the factual, evidence-based medical information, but I also found it very easy to read for someone without a medical/health background. It also helps de-mystify the process of what happens when you go into labor and what pain management options are available during each point. Regardless of what ultimate birth strategy you decide to use, this is a highly informative, well-written book, and one I'll be giving every first-time mom I know.

The bias in this book was terrible. It should have been labeled as an advertisement for the epidural. I was hoping to read something balanced but this book leaned so far towards the medical perspective that I often found myself frustrated. Although some of the stories that were included were helpful, they all started to sound the same. The majority of the stories were either about women who couldn't see the sense in suffering pain and knew they wanted an epidural or stories about women who were shocked about the amount of pain and then received the epidural. There were no labor stories about bad epidural experiences or about women who had an epidural and didn't like the experience. I know that this isn't that uncommon because I have many sisters and friends who have received epidurals and have been unsatisfied with their experience. There were very few successful natural childbirth stories and I also found it strange that the authors only included successful hypnobirthing stories. This book was in no way helpful in my quest for helpful non medical pain relief options. The chapters that focused on these options only gave vague suggestions and often overshadowed the suggestions they did give by including disappointing birth stories. I also found the parts that emphasized the importance of women being educated about childbirth completely unnecessary. If someone is reading this book, they are not going to fall into that category.

There were some redeeming parts to this book. I feel like I learned a lot more about the different medical options for pain relief and will be more informed if I opt to go for that route. Although the chapter about the history of pain relief during childbirth wasn't necessary or helpful, I actually liked it and found it fascinating. Even though I don't feel like this book helped me as much as I was expecting, I still found it somewhat helpful. Would I recommend it to others? Probably only to those who know they want an epidural. Otherwise, I'm sure there are other books that can give the same information about the epidural and be more balanced in their approach. This book left me feeling like the only way to a happy childbirth experience is to have an epidural.

Overall I found this a useful and informative book, with good information.

I would be a bit reserved in recommending it by itself because of the strong and very subtle slant. (One of the authors is the head of Obstetric Anesthesiology at a large hospital, and he's very pro-drug) The writing comes across as very scientific, factual and unbiased, but he ignores or glosses over side effects of epidurals, misquotes the C-section rate with over 200% error, and uses negative, condescending language describing women who prefer to give birth without drugs. (ie "Trying to be a hero" and "prefer to use nothing more high-tech than the massage setting on the shower head")

On the other hand, he does cover "CAM" treatments fairly positively, and gives pros and cons for many available options (even if he omits or downplays some cons on epidurals) and makes a clear and important distinction between epidurals, spinals and narcotic injection that is ignored by many "anti-drug" writers. It's really nice to get information from the "other side" since it seems many common books on pregnancy and childbirth have a "natural" slant. Since most women accept some sort of medication for labor, it seems pertinent to include information that informs with this in mind and represents a more mainstream point of view.

Since he was so persuasive and subtle, I would not recommend this without including some other book that describes more of the realities and pitfalls of how the establishment usually works (this book tends to mostly describe best case scenarios, referencing studies with 10% C Section rates rather than general mainstream drug-using hospital results, like the 32% national average C-section rate we currently experience in the US). My favorite is Pushed: The Painful Truth About Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care which also references a lot of studies and scientific material.

I would really like to see a book that examines evidence and assertions from both sides and reconciles them, since they seem rather contradictory.