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

Rebecca Jenkins's performance hits all the marks in terms of comprehensible phrasing, clear and steady voice quality, and emotional congruence. Her reading of this sprawling exposé is serious and without melodrama, but it does not express the gravitas that an alarmist message like this needs. The author supports her viewpoints with vivid anecdotes and selected study findings. She's been lambasted for what is seen as her global criticism of hospital practices, her romanticizing of home births, and her dramatic accounts of how physicians pressure women to have procedures babies don't need. Her impassioned broadside speaks a lot of truth about irresponsible profiteers and professional resistance to change. But in spite of Jenkins's balanced reading, the book loses credibility when the writing is more sensational and adversarial than persuasive. T.W. © AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine [Published: SEPTEMBER 2013]