I give enormous credit to anyone willing to stand up and shout about their positive birth experience and their views promoting natural childbirth and doubly so in America where the maternity care situation is significantly more dire than in the UK. It puts the UK in a good light, which if you think the UK has a long way to go should make you very scared about American maternity care.
Betsy Dewey was so moved by her two homebirths and the relationship she built up with her wise, experienced midwife that she was moved to write a book about it. Excellent. It is published by MomOwners which appears to be an independent organisation supporting mothers taking the next step in their lives after their children have left the crib. Excellent.
However, this book is poorly researched, badly written and appears to be almost unedited or completely over edited and these are the comments left in the margins from a book twice its length. I found it almost unreadable. It is over-familiar and folksy in style repeating what the midwife said to the mother; second hand information at best without the background or current research explanations to support some fairly dubious statements. It is possible that the American audience it was written for may find the vernacular more acceptable but I still question some of the health advice.
That said, any attempt to educate American women on their choices in childbirth and in particular the ease and comfort of midwifery led home births is a good thing but I would not recommend this to a British reader because there are so many British books that do this significantly better and with more reference to the British system.