Journalist Tina Cassidy became obsessed with the subject of birth after having her son George in an emergency caesarean. Were the doctors right? Did she have to go through what she did? Using her research skills, she set out on a quest through the libraries and hospitals of the world to find some answers.

It seems that there is no ‛Golden Era' of childbirth - it has always been potentially perilous. Cassidy shows that women throughout time have needed help giving birth - usually by other women or midwives. When male doctors and surgeons began to intervene, mother and baby death rates soared. Even more so when maternity hospitals were introduced and germs were spread unwittingly from doctors to mothers before the importance of hygiene was known.

She raises questions about why birth can be so difficult, how women have handled pain through the ages, whether men are in fact better left out of the delivery room and where is safer to give birth, at home or hospital?

The book is gripping and extremely readable although not for the faint-hearted. I certainly wouldn't recommend it for a first-time mum but on the other hand, despite the rising rate of caesareans in the UK, it made me damn pleased I've had children now and wasn't giving birth 100 or even 50 years ago! Fascinating.

RRP: £12.99 - Buy Now