Ina May's Guide to Childbirth

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Still, I would recommend reading Henci Goer's book in conjunction with this for a slightly more even-handed, useful approach to the topic. While a lot of her outrage seemed justified to me, it wasn't very helpful in a book that was supposed to be a "guide" to childbirth. Women have a special bond with their babies given to them by God, and childbirth is one of the times in life when this is abundantly clear. Payments made using National Book Tokens are processed by National Book Tokens Ltd, and you can read their Terms and Conditions here.

With Gaskin’s timeless wisdom, you can approach birth with confidence and excitement, wherever and however it happens. We are experiencing delays with deliveries to many countries, but in most cases local services have now resumed.The media and social pressure often make it seem like the fate of the world (or at least the future well-being and societal value of our kids) rests on basic parenting decisions like whether or not to use cloth diapers or BPA-free sippy cups. She emphasized a few things that focused on self-pleasure; during a time when a woman is delivering a baby into the world, I believe that herself should not be the primary thing on her mind. I appreciated the positive attitude toward the body and the amazing things it can do if you just let it. She does not shun the medical advances of the real world, but she has witnessed hundreds of births over decades and her perspective is that women's bodies are capable of more than is sometimes believed of them.

Almost half of the book is "positive" stories of people choosing home birth and traumatic stories by these choosing a hospital. A lot of information on the professional merits of midwifery, so I admit skipping some chapters for the time being to learn content more directly related my partner's pregnancy.As with any discussion about a debatable topic, the experts are not likely to be very open-minded, but she impressed me with her logical and tempered, if not unaggresive, presentation. It took a lot of the mystery away and clarified that labor was more than "hours of the worst pain in your life and very scary" like everyone tells you. Although Ina May may seem hippie dippie to some (she does include some out there ideas), her relationship to OBs in Tennessee, her birth stats from the thousands of births she’s attended, and her balance between respecting ancient wisdom/intuitive, physiologic birthing and scientific data all make her a wonderful person to learn about the beautiful process of birth from.

Again, this is something that people don't tend to speak about in daily conversation - so I am really grateful to Gaskin for opening up the world of childbirth to me with this book!I found it irresponsible and cowardly to say that she recognizes the need for modern medicine, but then dumps all over it.

The benefits of medical tests were skimmed over while the possible harm of these tests was thoroughly covered. It seems to have established itself as a classic in the “birth world” so I was highly expecting to enjoy it and glean a lot of helpful information from it. Then I took another star away for the lack of positive information about hospital birth and lack of other statistics, by state, stating what the cesarean rate was vs natural birth, as well as drug use during labor.Long story short (seriously, I just wrote my whole birth saga in 10 long paragraphs and deleted them because this is a BOOK REVIEW), my birth did not go according to plan either. Childbirth is empowering because it shows the connection between God’s decrees and His blessings, not simply because women are strong.