I have read a lot of great birthing books that I have loved and that have helped me with my babies and others I have referred to them. Now I have linked them all with amazon, because that is where I buy most of my books.
My favorite book that I read while I was pregnant with my daughter was "Birthing From Within" by Pam England. This book just kind of spoke to me if you will. However, whenever I recommend it to anyone I always find myself prefacing it, because it is a little odd to the average person. In the book she talks a lot about birth art and the beginning is pretty unique. But the second half has a lot of good advice on coping during labor. Reading birthing from within gave me a lot of confidence. It also made me look inside myself and see and realize my anxieties and preconceived notions about birth.
Ina Mae books! She has several and they are all great for expectant mothers. Ina Mae's Guide to Childbirth is a great one to start with. I would say it is the most mainstream of her books. She has a good range of technical how birth works type of information and techniques to find peace in birthing. Another book of hers I liked is Spiritual Midwifery it is a little more "hippie" than a lot of people are used to. She talks about her journey to becoming a midwife. Her days living in the caravan and learning to deliver babies out of necessity. She also has Birth Matters which promotes natural childbirth and shows the importance of birth and peace in childbirth.
My favorite part of the Ina Mae books is the stories. I loved reading the birth stories of these woman she had seen and helped over the years, it made me feel I was not alone. I loved feeling that comrodery with these other women who had been where I was. I drew strength from their positive birth stories wanting to have these joyful experiences like they had. She had many different stories so that everyone could relate to one of them.
Gentle Birth Choices by Barbara Harper was the first natural birthing book I actually read. It is very long and written like a textbook. It gave a lot of different choices and showed you that you have options. One section she has in there is birth myths, things that we believe or are lead to believe which actually are not true. One eye opener was how much say we have in our care that we do not realize, as consumers we should control the market, not the other way around.
Pushed by Jennifer Block. Interesting, has a different feel than the other books. She shows a lot more of the business and legal side of birth and decisions around birth. Another book that was similar to me was The Thinking Woman's Guide To a Better Birth. Both of these had a lot of research and statistics. The positive thing I found in these books was that statistically speaking it was perfectly safe for me to have my baby not in a hospital. This was important to me because people around me told me it was risky and I was glad to direct them to studies along with my personal confidence.
The Complete Book of Pregnancy and Childbirth reminded me a little of what to expect when you are expecting. It went through the weeks of pregnancy and was a lot more pregnancy focused rather than being mainly focused on the actual birth process. It was informative and very general. Personally, it was not really my type of book, but it is very highly recommended and great for a general reference for any woman.
As I continue to read more I will try to do mini reviews of the books.
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