4 books you should read if you are expecting a baby (and I wish I had read when I was pregnant)
Knowledge is power. If you are expecting a baby there is a wealth of information out there to support your pregnancy and birth, as you have no doubt discovered.
You've probably read some blogs, joined some apps and booked a pregnancy yoga class, new parent class or NCT class. You may have been given information by your midwife, or at antenatal appointments. Friends and family may have offered you advice.
The media and TV overload us with do's and don'ts, should's and shouldn'ts and a wealth of ways to make your pregnancy, birth and parenthood perfect.
Technology enables you to track your baby's development day by day, even see your baby in 4D.
Through all of this information is threaded the medical model of pregnancy, labour and birth. From our antenatal appointments, to our TV dramas and the vast experience of friends and family this is the basis for how we learn about pregnancy and birth.
The medical model and birthing in hospital has grown over the past half century or more to be the way we monitor pregnancy and facilitate birth. Home births led by midwives and supported by experienced women (often from the family) was the norm and is now the exception, despite for many births this being the safest option.
Whilst the development of medicine and technology has supported the labour and birth process, in other ways it can get in the way. We have replaced handed down knowledge from generations of women, with medical rules and systems that makes pregnancy and birth appear to be a hospital procedure, something done to a woman, rather than a process led by and owned by the woman herself .
“Many birth classes teach from the ‘outside’, from the perspective of the professional. Yet, knowledge of anatomy and the stages of labour can often seem irrelevant in the intensity of contraction. The pregnant woman needs to know about labour and birth from her own perspective, she needs to be prepared for birthing from within. ”
It is important to understand how the medical support of pregnancy and birth works, most women will have their babies in hospital. It is also important to know how to own your pregnancy, labour and birth through confidence in your own body, empowerment to make choices and decisions that instinctively feel right for you and your baby, and also gain knowledge that having a less medically led experience can be powerful, positive and take place in hospital or at home.
There are so many possibilities for your individual path through pregnancy and birth. The more medical model may be most appropriate. Knowing how your own hospital will guide you through your pregnancy, labour and birth, their preferred methods and processes is really important, especially if any intervention is required to birth safely for you and baby. But there are many ways to a labour and birth a baby without much or any intervention required - just the support of your midwifery team and some knowledge and confidence in your body and it's innate ability to labour and birth, which past generations knew well, and somehow seems to have got lost along the way for many women.
How to have an active labour and birth; tools and techniques to help your labour progress positively and even joyfully; how to ensure both mother and baby are well supported, empowered and able to make confident choices whether in hospital or at home; being more aware of your labour and birth environment and how to make it positive; ways to enjoy and share pregnancy, labour and birth with your partner; how to overcome fears and anxieties naturally surrounding pregnancy, labour and birth are all found in these 4 books which everyone expecting a baby should read.
Even reading just one will give you more choices and ideas to explore. Suddenly birthing your baby on your back, in a highly charged environment as all the TV dramas and movies would have us believe is the norm, may not actually be the way you see your birth journey. Instead you may well picture a more calm and peaceful environment, where you are able to birth in your own way, in your own time listening to the cues of your own body and working with your baby through the most natural process a woman's body can make in her lifetime. One that should be wholly positive whether in hospital, at home or somewhere in-between.
Oh and these books are not just for the person carrying and birthing the baby - these books are for partners, birth partners and anyone else supporting the birth of a new baby and the birth of a mother, the person who is front and centre of this natural, intense and wonderful process.
I wish I had read these books before I had my boys – they would have really helped my choices and birth journeys. When I reflect back on my two very different hospital births, both with their own highs and lows I am struck by how many things could have been done differently and felt more positive, but I’m also struck by how much of both labour and births were instinctive, natural and led by my own inner guidance. Even if you haven’t read all the books, if you can tap into yourself, your own power and your own body’s ability to birth, your journey will be positive. These books may just help you find your confidence and inner strengths you never knew you had.
1. How to Have a Baby - mother gathered guidance on birth and new babies by Natalie Meddings.
What the cover says:
For a healthy woman with a straightforward pregnancy, giving birth is very safe. The experience of birth can be a positive, extraordinary life event. What gets in the way is that we've collectively forgotten how to do it. How to Have a Baby will remind you. Full of real, practical, mother-gathered guidance, this book reassures, readies and restores what's been missing for far too long. Confidence.
What I say:
This book was described to me as 'a hug in a book' and it really is. Simple and easy to read Natalie has split the book into three sections - on preparing and pregnancy, on labour and birth and on new borns and first days. Each with short chapters with really useful and positive advice, ideas and links. Interspersed with words from mothers sharing knowledge and experience this is a fabulous book to dip into or read cover to cover.
2. Birthing from Within by Pam England and Rob Horowitz
What the cover says:
Giving Birth is the pivotal moment of a woman's life but it is often treated as a medical procedure, and not as a rite of passage. Birthing from Within offers parents engaging and memorable ways for pregnant women, and their partners to activate personal, social and spiritual resources that will guide them through labour and afterwards.
Pam England offers a method that allows a woman to fully understand her own strengths and resources. The self-discoveries made during pregnancy makes birth life-enhancing and empowers the future of the family. It is a multi-sensory and holistic approach that aims to make parents feel positively informed about what they are about to experience, confident about the birth of their child.
What I say:
Birthing Within shares Childbirth Preparation ideas and techniques that Pam uses in her Birth Preparation Classes. The book gives lots of positive ways to navigate the medical model of hospital birth and lots of ideas to help make birth as positive as possible. It doesn’t shy away from the pain of childbirth and offers ways to manage and welcome the pain as well as reasons for the pain and the pros and cons of pain relief. Real life stories and experiences are used throughout the book and there are chapters specifically giving information for birth partners to help make the birth as positive as possible. There are lots of interesting techniques offered to explore pre-birth expectations and post-birth reflections, from using art to journaling. Not all the techniques will resonate, but you can dip in and out as you like. The book offers lots of questions and exercises to help de-mystify birth but also question the ideas pregnant women and couples may have and enable them to explore around their own ideas and for some this may even result in changing their ideas and choices for labour and birth.
3. Ina May's Guide to Childbrith by Ina May Gaskin
What the cover says:
Everything you need to know to have the best birth experience for you - whether in hospital, birthing centre or the comfort of home.
'My most fervent prayer for all pregnant women is that they read this book and heed its wisdom. Thank you, Ina May, from the bottom of my heart for writing this guide to natural childbirth. This information can change the world.' Dr Christiane Northrup
What I say:
Ina May's information and advice is based soundly on her huge experience as a midwife in America, scientific evidence and innate wisdom of the pregnant body to labour and birth a baby positively and safely.
The first half of the book is positive birth stories, universal and timeless. The second half Ina's wisdom in the essentials of birth which can benefit every birthing mother. Whilst the final parts of the book are based in the US health system, they are still relevant and you can find out more about any differences in the UK system as you work with your own care providers.
4. The Fourth Trimester - a postpartum guide to healing your body, balancing your emotions and restoring your vitality - by Kimberly Ann Johnson
What the cover says:
This holistic guide offers practical advice to support women through postpartum healing on the physical, emotional, relational and spiritual levels - and provides women with a roadmap to this very important transition that can last from a few months to a few years.
Kimberly Ann Johnson draws from her vast professional experience as a doula, postpartum consultant, yoga teacher, body worker, and women's health care advocate, and from the healing traditions of Ayurveda, traditional Chinese medicine, and herbalism - as well as her own personal experience.
What I say:
We learn so much about labour and birth - but we don't truly prepare for the first months after birth which are hard work, emotionally challenging and physically exhausting even if we have no lasting birth issues. Expecting mothers and partners and those supporting the new baby and new parents should read this book and think carefully about the days, weeks and months after birth as much as the days weeks and months leading to the birth.
Kimberly Ann had a difficult birth and postnatal experience despite being a yoga teacher and in tune with her body. It was a shock to her that birth could have such long term affects on her body. The book stems from her recovery and her work supporting women to have the best birth possible, heal well whatever their birth journey and above all care for themselves as well as their baby.
Whilst many births are positive and straightforward, there are also births that are difficult. This book will help you to know that you are not alone in your experience and that you must prioritise your own health and well-being postnatally as much as your baby.
There are many ideas and techniques that Kimberly Ann covers and you will find the ones that make most sense to you to consider before baby arrives. And then there is a wealth of information to use after baby has arrived to suit your individual needs postnatally.
I hope that you enjoy exploring these books, let me know what you think.
Whatever choices you make, it is your body, your baby and your birth. You must make the best choices that you can for you and you will absolutely do the best that you can. Every birth journey is unique just as every mother and every baby is unique. There is no right or wrong way to birth a baby, but there is a positive way, and that lies in feeling informed, empowered and confident in your choices, your confidence in your innate ability to grow, labour, birth and then nurture your new baby in the way that feels right for you.
I wish you much love for your amazing journey ahead.