Reclaiming My Birth Rights Paperback – June 21, 2014

Giving this to all my pregnant friends. Hopefully, all Americans (and others) will soon figure out that male circumcision does more harm than good, and purports to fix a problem that doesn't exist. This book presents that idea very effectively, and non-threateningly. Some people say that a natural penis is dirty, but really, who doesn't wash? Like any body part, it isn't dirty if you wash. The benefits of having a foreskin (to both partners) far outweigh not having to clean under the skin.I've never understood why a mom would want to give birth, and then amputate part of their son's genitals, giving him extreme pain and a bloody wound, and scar tissue for the rest of his life. Taking a perfect baby and then scarring him, and trying to nurse a bloody wound at home after giving birth? Oh, and what about his rights as a person to have a whole, intact body? Doesn't anybody care about that?Would give this 1,000,000 stars if I could.

Dr Carmack's book removes the fear and pessimism from parenting. So many mothers make fear-based parenting decisions. For example, they fear that if they don't subject their sons to forced genital cutting, that "it will have to be done later." Dr Carmack explains how instead, parents can make optimistic, love-based birthing and parenting decisions.

A budding urologist and a mother comes to grips with unquestioned medical practices and societal customs that hinder, rather than help newborns adjust and grow into healthy children. Using the services of midwives, instead of having childbirth in a hospital is explored, along with issues surrounding circumcision and breastfeeding.

This book is a great introduction to the negatives of medicalized childbirth. I love that she speaks out against circumcision, an odd Victorian practice that is much-too-slowly slipping out of American culture. It's time to throw the Gomcos and Plastibells away, doctors.

Inspirational and life affirming. Written by an ethical and knowledgeable physician. I thank the author for being an advocate for natural, intervention-free, child birth and for the human rights of all children, to grow up with their whole bodies intact.

Short but great read by a professional.

very informative

"Reclaiming my Birth Rights" is a fascinating, honest and important account. Carmack, a pediatric urologist, details her journey as an intactivist noting that "preventative measures that actually promote health can be used throughout one's lifetime without the need to amputate body parts." She takes the reader on her own journey that involved thorough research regarding the history of routine infant male circumcision in the US. Given that 50% of the surgeries she and her colleagues performed were reparative surgeries as a result of complications arising from circumcision, she rightly refers to the genital cutting of boys as "totally unjustified."In addition to her words on intactivism, I loved Carmack's retelling of her three child births, each vivid in its own right and each one becoming more and more reflective of a deep and powerful instinctive trust in the wisdom of her body. The birth stories constituted my favorite part of her memoir."Reclaiming my Birth Rights" is an insightful read and I certainly recommend it.