Not since The Beauty Myth has Naomi Wolf written such a powerful and passionate critique of American culture, this time focusing on the hidden costs and vested interests surrounding pregnancy and birth in America.

While in the grip of one of the most primal, lonely, sensual, and in the same ways, physically dangerous experiences they are likely to undergo, American women, Wolf argues, are offered condescending advice anddamaging misconceptions about the nature of pregnancy, birth and newmotherhood.

Wolf's own first experience with pregnancy and motherhood took heraback, profoundly challenging her most basic assumptions about feminism,the nuances of abortion, and the easy expectations of freedom andequality that women of her generation hold.

In a narrative that follows the nine months of pregnancy and thefirst few months of early parenthood, Misconceptions illuminatesthe conflicting feelings of inadequacy, fragility, and even anger thatso many women experience along with their sense of anticipation and joy.So often these feelings go unvoiced because of women's fears of beingseen as a "bad" mother.

Wolf describes her own difficult path to first-time motherhood, andin doing so, criticizes the failure of the medical establishment toprovide pregnant women with a safe, effective, and emotionally supportive environment in which to labor. She shares riveting stories of postpartum disillusionment, as well as discloses the relationship struggles that even the most committed of couples fall into when faced with the demands of new parenthood.

In a dramatic interweaving of personal revelations and socialcommentary, Wolf shows that despite its much-touted reverence forfamilies, American businesses and society make few concessions to theemotional and economic needs of new parents and, in fact, placeextraordinary pressures on them.