Ina May's Guide to Childbirth

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The first part is a compilation of birth stories from lots and lots of women; many will make you cry with joy. The _ga cookie, installed by Google Analytics, calculates visitor, session and campaign data and also keeps track of site usage for the site's analytics report. and reading the whole first section, with all these AMAZING stories of natural childbirth just made me feel like i was a complete and total failure and less than a real woman for never having gone that route.

So instead of promoting dangerous ideas that science shouldn't be used or trusted, let's get science and midwifery to complement each other. 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.

I've yet to find a really wonderful pregnancy, childbirth or parenting book that is objective and firmly in the middle ground. First of all, the birth experiences at the beginning, while somewhat nauseating, were also very encouraging. She's not against medical intervention in the right circumstances, even if those circumstances are emotion-led. Her constant reminder that deliveries at her clinic rarely need medical intervention doesn't paint a full picture. This book does give some good information about helping labor progress and some of what she says makes sense to me.

And this insane social pressure on moms begins even before kids are born, in the Natural Childbirth movement that this book represents. Founded in 1971, by 1996, the Farm Midwifery Center had handled more than 2200 births, with remarkably good outcomes.The second half of the book comprises Gaskin's own views of childbirth, largely based on the argument that there is too much medical intervention for mothers, and not enough control given to the mother during labour. Even if it has not been your habit throughout your life so far, I recommend that you learn to think positively about your body. That said, though, there are perfectly valid reasons why some of us do give birth in hospitals, and not all hospital births are the nightmare that natural childbirth books make them out to be.

I plan to go without pain meds for as long as I can but if labor goes on too long, or gets to be too much, or if I have to be induced (which is looking likely) I am open to the meds. These stories are all from the 1970s so I felt like I was reading a history book since I am so far removed from that age group.Ina May's Guide to Childbirth is skewed toward natural childbirth and can get a little culty, especially all the stories about The Farm, but I found the information in the second part of the book really helpful even when planning for a hospital birth. Gaskin’s center is noted for its low rates of intervention, morbidity and mortality despite the inclusion of many vaginally delivered breeches, twin and grand multiparas.