Are all these C-sections necessary, or are some of them done simply for the sake of convenience? Inductions seem to be the norm, but are they always needed? Today, expectant mothers are often left feeling powerless, as their instincts are replaced by drugs and routine medical procedures. What you are about to discover is that you have a choice, and you have the power to plan the kind of birth that's right for you-whether it is at a birth center, a hospital, or at home. In YOUR BEST BIRTH, internationally known advocates of informed choice RickiLake and Abby Epstein inspire women to take back the birth experience, with essential advice on:· Positive and negative effects of epidurals, Pitocin, and other drugs and interventions · Inducing vs. allowing your labor to progress naturally · The truth behind our country's staggering C-section rate · Assembling your birth team and creating your birth plan.With chapters such as "Obstetricians: Finding Dr. Right," "Epidurals: You Haven't Got Time for the Pain," and "Electronic Monitors: Reading between the Lines," Lake and Epstein will encourage you to consider whatever your doctor, mother, and best friend may suggest in a new light. The book also includes inspiring birth stories, including those from well-known personalities, such as Laila Ali and Cindy Crawford. Packed with crucial advice from childbirth professionals, and delivered in a down-to-earth, engaging voice, YOUR BEST BIRTH is sure to renew your confidence and put the control back where it belongs: with parents-to-be!"Abby Epstein and Ricki Lake have taken a wonderful and constructive approach to ensuring an optimal birthing experience. Their language creates a 'climate of confidence' for pregnant women and their families, who must make key decisions about where, how and with whom to give birth in a health care system often unresponsive to our needs. This book is like a good friend giving wise counsel." --Judy Norsigian, co-editor of Our Bodies, Ourselves: Pregnancy and Birth and Executive Director, Our Bodies Ourselves

    This learning experience is designed for Bible studies, discussion groups, elder teams, pastoral staff, or any other small group of Christians who desire to engage questions of faith, sexuality and gender with both grace and truth. Grace/Truth 1.0 contains many questions designed to facilitate small group discussions where Christians can engage the material in thoughtful ways. It's also accompanied with a documentary about Christians who have wrestled with their faith, sexuality or gender identity, along with several short teaching videos for each chapter that help the group to engage the topics discussed in this book (The Grace/Truth 1.0 videos/DVDs must be purchased separately.) Those who want to go deeper can listen to podcasts and read pastoral papers that go deeper into the subjects discussed in Grace/Truth 1.0. The additional resources mentioned can be found online here: https://www.centerforfaith.com/resour...

    Christiane Northrup. Birthing is a miraculous time when you and your baby will work together to bring about life. As you finally cradle your precious newborn in your arms, you should know deep in your soul that every decision that brought the two of you to this special moment was yours. More families than ever are choosing to birth at home. Midwives Jane E. Drichta and Jodilyn Owen answer questions about the kind of care, support, and information you need as you investigate whether this option is right for you. Birth can be an empowering and positive experience, and this book provides gentle guidance, with high regard for your wisdom and ability to successfully navigate your prenatal care, birth, and early mothering. Enriched with real birth stories from new mothers, The Essential Homebirth Guide offers thoughtful, compassionate advice on a wealth of birthing topics, including: • Building a supportive homebirth community • Caring for yourself and your baby from your pregnancy through the postpartum period • Communicating about your birthing plans with your midwife, your partner, and your family and friends • Deciding whether homebirth is safe for you • Educating yourself about common pregnancy-related issues • Preparing your home and your family for the big day

    This is Girl on the Net's true story - of falling in love and falling apart. From the honeymoon days of sex whenever and wherever, to the everyday issues that comes with a solid relationship. This is more than a memoir, this is a must-read for all of us who have ever wondered...can great sex and real love ever go hand in hand?

    Heart & Hands: A Midwife's Guide to Pregnancy & Birth will shows compassionate sensitivity to women's needs in pregnancy and childbirth.

    Lindsey Bliss, who has assisted as a doula at hundreds of births and is herself a mother of seven, reveals here all the wisdom and advice that doulas share with the new mothers who hire them.The Doula's Guide to Empowering Your Birth covers the period from pregnancy through labor and birth to fourth trimester healing. The focus, however, is on preparing for birth--including topics like how to pick the right childbirth class and the right birthing method. You’ll also see how to assemble the team of professionals, family members, and friends who will support you through labor and birth, and how to approach last-minute decisions about pain medications and cesarean sections. Bliss's tone throughout is at once authoritative and confident as well as warm and encouraging. Her concern in her practice as well as in these pages is to listen to and help secure each new mom's own personal vision of a birthing experience that is safe, fulfilling, and meaningful.

    As a teenager, Cara's family home burnt to the ground. That tragedy led her on a journey that would span a variety of countries and cultures. While she was in Morocco, a woman suffered from a fatal injury. Grieving the unnecessary death, Cara resolved that, next time, she would know what to do to save a life.In this fascinating and searingly honest memoir, Cara reveals what eventually led her to support women in one of the most significant experiences of their lives. Balancing science with intuition, parenthood with her work, and sacrifice with joy, Cara shows us what it means to be alive and to live a life of purpose.Just as readers are fascinated by Carly Fiorina's or Elizabeth Gilbert's journeys, they will find great inspiration in Cara's journey to live her calling. Whether you read about her "in Vogue "or the" New York Times"; saw her in the documentary "The Business of Being Born," by filmmakers Ricki Lake and Abby Epstein; or are learning about her for the first time here, you are sure to be inspired by her remarkable story.

    But when it comes to one of the most important decisions of your life--how you will give birth—it is hard to gather accurate, unbiased information. Surprisingly, much of the research does not support common medical opinion and practice.Birth activist Henci Goer gives clear, concise information based on the latest medical studies. The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth helps you compare and contrast your various options and shows you how to avoid unnecessary procedures, drugs, restrictions, and tests. The book covers:CesareansBreech babiesInducing laborElectronic Fetal MonitoringRupturing MembranesCoping with slow laborPain medicationEpistiotomyVaginal birth after a CeasareanDoulasDeciding on a doctor or midwifeChoosing where to have your babyand much more . . .

    Drawing on groundbreaking research in neuroscience, mindfulness meditation, and mind/body medicine, Bardacke offers practices that will help you find calm and ease during this life-changing time, providing lifelong skills for healthy living and wise parenting.SOME OF THE BENEFITS OF MINDFUL BIRTHING:Increases confidence and decreases fear of childbirth Taps into deep inner resources for working with pain Improves couple communication, connection, and cooperation Provides stress-reducing skills for greater joy and wellbeing

    It's packed with tools you won't find anywhere else, including:* Charts highlighting the risks of using various over-the-counter drug productsduring pregnancy* Lists of the ten best -- and worst --baby products* A set of emergency childbirth procedures* Forthright discussions of difficult topics like infertility, high-risk pregnancy, and pregnancy and infant loss that other books are loathe to tackle

    Jackie Mize--who was told it was impossible for her to have a baby and who is now the mother of four beautiful children--provides readers with a supernatural answer. Filled with powerful and intimate scriptural prayers, this little book gives readers a way to come before Father God in faith with issues from having a difficult time getting pregnant to joyfully cradling that precious gift from God in their arms. By taking an expectant mother--or a women who desperately wants to be expecting--through God's promises for her and her baby's future, Prayers and Promises for Supernatural Childbirth is a bundle of joy that delivers hope and encouragement, while chasing away doubts and fears. Specific issues covered in the scriptural prayers include: fulfillment over barrenness; the threat of miscarriage; a joyful delivery day; and dedicating one's baby to God.

    It is also no secret that these nineteenth-century gynecologists performed experimental caesarean sections, ovariotomies, and obstetric fistula repairs primarily on poor and powerless women. Medical Bondage breaks new ground by exploring how and why physicians denied these women their full humanity yet valued them as "medical superbodies" highly suited for medical experimentation.In Medical Bondage, Cooper Owens examines a wide range of scientific literature and less formal communications in which gynecologists created and disseminated medical fictions about their patients, such as their belief that black enslaved women could withstand pain better than white "ladies." Even as they were advancing medicine, these doctors were legitimizing, for decades to come, groundless theories related to whiteness and blackness, men and women, and the inferiority of other races or nationalities. Medical Bondage moves between southern plantations and northern urban centers to reveal how nineteenth-century American ideas about race, health, and status influenced doctor-patient relationships in sites of healing like slave cabins, medical colleges, and hospitals. It also retells the story of black enslaved women and of Irish immigrant women from the perspective of these exploited groups and thus restores for us a picture of their lives.

    Pregnancy, childbirth, and post-partum offer women some of the most emotionally enriching and satisfying experiences of their life. But many women entering motherhood are shocked at their lack of preparation or awareness about what that actually means for their bodies, minds, spirits, and relationships. Kimberly Johnson, a doula, post-partum recovery expert, and yoga instructor has created a wise and supportive illustrated guide that offers women a roadmap to this very important transition that can last a few months--or even a few years. She draws from her vast professional experience, as well as her own personal experience, and also a number of disciplines including Western medicine, traditional Chinese medicine, Ayurveda, yoga, herbal medicine, energetics, and traditional (folk) remedies, among others, to create a truly rich and holistic guide. The book offers advice for pregnant women on how to prepare their body for birth; how to organize themselves and their households for the best possible transition to motherhood; simple practices to facilitate healing and restore energy; and how to strengthen relationships and aid the return to sex. Johnson also explores the complex and often conflicting emotions that arise post-partum, and explores the profound nature of childbirth and new motherhood. She helps women contextualize their experience and tap into the spiritual opportunities it can provide.

    Exercises and activities such as journal writing, meditation, and painting will help mothers analyze their thoughts and face their fears during pregnancy. For use during birth, the book offers proven techniques for coping with labor pain without drugs, a discussion of the doctor or midwife’s role, and a look at the father’s responsibilities. Childbirth education should also include what to expect after the baby is born. Here are baby basics, such as how to bathe a newborn, how to get the little one to sleep, and tips for getting nursing off to a good start. Pregnancy, birth, and postpartum is a process of continuous learning and adjustment; Birthing From Within provides the necessary support and education to make each phase of birthing a rewarding experience.

    Important not only for sexuality, they are also central to the processes of childbirth and elimination. The Female Pelvis was written for women to use over the course of their lives, with a special emphasis on pregnancy, childbirth, and its aftermath. Its purpose is to help women become more familiar with the pelvis and its related structures, and how to keep them healthy and fit. The book begins with a description of the functional anatomy of the pelvis, and how it responds to pregnancy and childbirth. This is followed by a series of specific exercises, initially for self-discovery, and then to increase the flexibility, strength, and coordination of each of the pelvic functions. The book concludes with some guidelines which focus on the pelvis during different phases of a woman's life. The Female Pelvis was designed to make the subject of the pelvis understandable to all women. Anatomically correct, the language of the text is clear and concise. Over 250 drawings illustrate every important aspect of pelvic anatomy, and show the reader how to perform simple exercises to keep the pelvis and its related structures fit.