Honest Labor

By Jane O'Reilly

WHAT ONLY A MOTHER CAN TELL YOU ABOUT HAVING A BABY by K.C. Cole; Anchor/Doubleday 318 pages;$10.95

Childbirth remains one of the most grotesque and transcendent of all natural functions, matched perhaps only by its necessary preliminary. Everything about the process is astonishing. Especially the baby. Science Writer K.C. Cole, despite her own and her husband's most diligent efforts to know exactly what was happening, was still surprised. As she writes, "There is a wide range of things, it seems, that nobody ever tells you about having a baby." Her book, aptly titled What Only a Mother Can Tell You About Having a Baby, tries to narrow that range.

For her research, Cole taped interviews with groups of mothers and sent out hundreds of questionnaires. Unfortunately, her research included no unmarried mothers, no one who had had a woman obstetrician and no one who had had a baby at home. Still, her initial discovery applies to anyone in pregnancy: "Whatever the rules, each woman is bound to be the exception." Her book, which includes many viewpoints and possibilities, is a kind of print-version support group, and, as she suggests, should be read along with all the other how-to-have-a-baby books.

Many of those books are written by doctors and, while soberly reassuring and biologically informative, tend to address private qualms in a condescending manner. Cole's book is breezy, full of quotes from mothers, and reassuring. She points out, for example, the almost always overlooked distinction between being pregnant and actually being a mother. "While the two are biologically connected, emotionally they may have nothing in common at all." In other words, if you are eight months pregnant and find someone else's baby a repulsive blob, you have not necessarily made a horrible mistake.

Living with the baby is the lesson, and it is one not only mothers can learn: "I can certainly sympathize with a father who doesn't want to be a witness to the pain of labor, or who is frightened by hospitals and wary of birth: all that blood and gore. I absolutely understand why he would want to avoid dirty diapers. And I believe him when he says he doesn't know the first thing about caring for a baby. That's exactly how most mothers feel. The difference is, most mothers don't have a choice."

These days, an informed father is essential, not least, in Cole's book, because he is the mother's backup in her struggles with the obstetrician. Male doctors are not exactly the heroes of this book. For all is not peaceful birthing rooms and tranquil, exultant deliveries, as older mothers once hoped. According to Cole, women who have placed their faith in the teachings of Fernand Lamaze, Frederick Leboyer, Elizabeth Bing and other advocates of natural childbirth will, almost automatically, find themselves in an adversary position when they enter the hospital. She writes: "The truth is that childbirth in America is getting more unnatural every day. A woman expecting her first baby today has a 25% chance of delivering by caesarean. Even a 'natural' birth often means that the mother is merely 'awake' for the proceedings. Never mind that she's strapped down, numb below the waist, electronically monitored, chemically induced, and intravenously fed."

One of the things nobody seems to explain about having a baby is what happens to the mother immediately afterward. Cole is particularly good in her description of the upheaval: the physical exhaustion, bodily ruin, wetness, bewilderment, depression. "Conserve power," she advises. "Don't plan on dinner for twenty. Don't entertain too many relatives that are a drain on you. Don't -- as I did -- fly out to Santa Barbara for a week . . . Don't try to prove that having a baby isn't going to make a difference in your life," she warns. "It is."

That difference, the author steadily and hearteningly reminds her readers, is in the end worth all the prior trauma and trouble. To have a baby, she urges, read what you will and then do what seems best. What seems best is to start by reading Cole and heeding her sound counsel. To live with the baby, she says, "savor every morsel of motherhood as it comes along. ' '

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