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Ina May's Guide to Childbirth: Updated With New Material

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I have Your No Guilt Pregnancy Plan by Rebecca Schiller, which is great if you want something that won't panic you and tells you what your rights are in pregnancy, what you're entitled to, etc. It also has some lovely real-life stories from women with both negative and extremely positive experiences, which I found reassuring."(Recommended by Mumsnet user Miller2021) Which gets me to the last part that bothered me. Doctors are blamed for almost everything. The author mentioned the high rate of epidurals and the resulting interventions. However, she failed to note that part of the problem was the large number of women who demand epidurals. There are many women who refuse to give birth without an epidural and therefore, have no desire to have a midwife or intervention-free birth. (I personally don't have anything against that. But it would contribute to why so many American women use doctors.'s instead of midwives and why so many interventions happen.) Despite all of those flaws, I did find some of the birth stories helpful. I liked reading about what the women did to cope with pain/lessen the pain and the various ways they pushed out their babies. I just wish that could have been a focus in all of the stories. Navigating through your baby's first year can be full of highs and lows, including challenges such as postpartum recovery and sleep deprivation. At times, it can be hard to trust your instincts, particularly when you are constantly met with others' opinions or recommendations of the ‘best’ way to approach parenthood. Ina May Gaskin, America's leading midwife, shares her birthing wisdom in this intuitive guide to childbirth. With a focus on natural birthing, it offers advice and tips to maximise your chances of an unmedicated labour and helps you prepare for your birth experience, whether in a hospital or at home.

All right, those griefs being aired, I actually did like this book, and I'm glad I read it. First of all, the birth experiences at the beginning, while somewhat nauseating, were also very encouraging. They were all so different from the birth stories you normally hear, and it made me happy to know that natural childbirth really can be an extremely positive experience. Giving birth is not something women need to be "saved" from by medical intervention. Breastfeeding for the first time can be incredibly daunting. Whether you’re worrying about feeding positions, the quality of your baby's latch, engorgement or simply if your baby is getting enough milk, establishing a breastfeeding routine can be really overwhelming, particularly when met with well-meaning but conflicting advice from friends and family. This book is essentially a collection of stories from the 70s? about births. There's greater romance than I'm telling here, because the book tells the story also of how this collective of midwives grew from Ina May to a raft of 'disciples' who lived in housebuses in a large community together and served the greater community. Some reviewers found the jovial writing style a little patronising, as it does assume very minimal knowledge about pregnancyWhether it's hormones or hypnobirthing, stretch marks or swollen ankles, it's always reassuring to know YANBU when moaning about your pregnancy ailments. Some popular choices that have been tried, tested and recommended by Mumsnet members include Taking Charge of your Fertility and The Impatient Women’s Guide to Getting Pregnant, both of which focus on the steps you can take to prepare your body for pregnancy, monitoring your ovulation cycle and maximising your chances of getting pregnant. What books should I read in my first trimester? In addition to the stroll down memory lane, we also get a large amount of personal essays and the different experiences from women and men regarding the labors with their children in the hands of the midwives. They actually started sounding redundant so I skimmed past many of them. I think the point is absolutely right: be nice to pregnant women. Support them. Empower them. Don't pathologize pregnancy. Right on.

What are your preferences?: You may already have some opinions and preferences about the pregnancy and birth experience you want, and this may dictate the kind of book that's right for you. If you have your heart set on a natural labour, a hypnobirthing book may be the obvious choice, whereas if you already know you're going to bottle feed, the breastfeeding specialism options may be ones to avoid. Siobhan Miller is an expert hypnobirthing teacher and founder of The Positive Birth Company. In this book, she aims to make hypnobirthing more accessible for every mum and every kind of birth, whether at home or in the hospital. You'll also find this book topping our guide to the best hynobirthing book as recommended by Mumsnet users. My last gripe is that SOME of the things she suggested were a little out-there for me. She shuns prudishness in our culture, and encourages women to make birth (or, rather, allow birth) to be a sexual experience, yet totally respects the fact that most women are too prudish to have a stranger (especially a man) in the birthing room with them, without adverse effects to the progress of labor. So, a little bit of a double standard there. I'm personally on the side of prudishness in all its forms. I loved Hollie McNish's 'Nobody Told Me'. It’s a mix of poetry and prose, her thoughts through pregnancy and the early years. Made me cry in the post-pregnancy haze.” (Vetted by Mumsnet user Mogtheexcellent) Our verdictAnother downside of this book was that it was a little too "Rah, rah, rah, women's bodies can do anything!!" for my taste. I guess that's not a really bad thing, because it did pump me up for childbirth, but as Gaskin constantly refers to her experience birthing women on "The Farm" (I can't help but think of it in semi-sarcastic quotation marks), I kept thinking how her sample is made up of very naturalistic, in-touch women (read: hippies) and a woman like myself is likely to have a different experience in childbirth, even given the fact that my body really knows what to do. There are a huge number of pregnancy books to choose from, some covering the entire pregnancy journey and others more specialist or niche in focus. Loved the birth stories even though sometimes the hippie-ness of it is a little off putting. E.g., there are people who've had amazing natural childbirth experiences who don't need to live in the middle of nowhere, prefer the word contraction to rushes and would never use the word "psychedelic" to describe anything and I wish there were more of those so that women considering non-medicated birth could have that "Aah, she's just like me" moment of recognition. But overall the stories were inspiring. I also like the practicality of a lot of the advice. My biggest complaints are that:

I have completely immersed myself in the education and evidence-based information regarding childbirth, and continue to be blown away by what I am just now learning and what so many of us are never told and just accept and falsely trust more than we really should.With so many pregnancy books to choose from it can be hard to know where to start. Here’s some things to take into account when making your choice: Straight to the point, factual and science-based. It goes into detail about exactly what is happening in your body and why, without being patronising or dumbing things down for the reader.” (Reviewed by Mumsnet user Turtleturtle81) Our verdict

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