Shock and Awe: 7 Surprising Facts About Pregnancy and Childbirth in the United States

When I first heard that my friend and fellow author Jennifer Margulis was writing a book called The Business of Baby: What Doctors Don't Tell You, What Corporations Try to Sell You, and How to Put Your Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Baby Before Their Bottom Line, I knew one thing for sure: this book is going to make a lot of people angry. In fact, researching the book made Margulis herself angry, and at times, shocked. "I have four children and I've been writing about parenting for ten years. But I quickly found out that I knew much less than I thought. I was shocked by so much of what I learned," she says. The Business of Baby is not a reassuring, feel-good book. But it's an important, if sometimes difficult, read. I didn't agree with every point Margulis makes in it, but particularly in her chapters on maternal health, I often found myself nodding along or gasping in outrage. Here are a few of the facts and points made in the book that I found most head-shakingly shocking. -By Meagan Francis

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