The Perfect Birth Myth

Nathman and Wage lay out a supportive road map to maternal healthcare in the U.S… . Comprehensive and accessible, this is an important resource for those navigating a system that doesn’t always have their best interests in mind. * Publishers Weekly, starred review *
Nathman and Wage offer a masterful integration of historical, psychological, and sociopolitical insight. Their exploration of perfectionism, systemic inequities, and the commercialization of birth mirrors the patterns I see in perinatal mental health where impossible standards fuel distress and disconnection. This book should be required reading for anyone shaping birth policy or practice in the United States. * Jessica Zucker, PhD, psychologist and author of “Normalize It” and “I Had a Miscarriage” *
The Perfect Birth Myth is an urgent and compassionate examination of what birthing people in the United States face every day. Avital Norman Nathman and Deborah Wage remind us that safe, respectful, and equitable care is not optional, it’s a human right. * Christy Turlington Burns, founder of Every Mother Counts *
This book is a literal lifesaver for people considering pregnancy and motherhood. Nathman and Wage provide clear, informed, pragmatic, and compassionate context and advice for anyone who has to navigate the real consequence of America’s maternal health crisis today. * Soraya Chemaly, author of All We Want is Everything: How We Dismantle Male Supremacy *
With compassion, evidence and grace, The Perfect Birth Myth does something rare: it refuses to let you blame yourself. In a world that treats birth processes and outcomes as consumer decisions or measures of individual worth, this book illuminates how often they are, instead, the entirely predictable result of a for-profit healthcare system that profits from anxiety while neglecting the most marginalized. Ultimately, this book — a little like birth itself — is about power: who has it, who gets hurt when they don’t, and what it would take to actually change that. * Irin Carmon, author of Unbearable and The Notorious RBG *
If you want to understand how culture, policy, and inequality show up in the delivery room, start here. The Perfect Birth Myth will liberate you from the myths we’ve been handed about childbirth and replace them with facts, context, and compassion. * Blair Imani Ali, creator of Smarter in Seconds and author of Read This to Get Smarter *

Avital Norman Nathman (she/her) is a writer, editor, and storyteller who has spent nearly 20 years using words to challenge norms and amplify underrepresented voices. Her work—infused with a sharp feminist lens—explores motherhood, maternal health, gender, and reproductive rights, appearing in The New York Times, Teen Vogue, Rolling Stone, Cosmopolitan, VICE, and beyond. She previously edited The Good Mother Myth: Redefining Motherhood to Fit Reality.

Deborah Wage (she/her) is a nurse practitioner, nurse midwife, and researcher whose career focused on reshaping how healthcare could better serve women and families, improving outcomes in the process. She founded one of Nashville, Tennessee’s first independent midwifery practices and went on to join the faculty of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine as an assistant professor.

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