The new attitude of expectant moms is one of cheerful anticipation, optimism, and pride in their changing bodies. The Joy of Pregnancy reflects this positive spirit by emphasizing what's normal, fun, and even funny about pregnancy. In a lighthearted and encouraging tone, Tori Kropp helps mothers- and fathers-to-be concentrate on the miracle of pregnancy and birth rather than on possible complications. The month-by-month format provides the essential information that expectant parents crave: how the baby is developing, how the mother's body is changing, how to prepare for birth and baby, and the pros and cons of various pregnancy-related choices and issues. Tori's tone is reassuring, nonjudgmental, and often humorous. Questions and answers from her online community Stork Site®, highlighted tips, and facts make the text fun to read as well as informative. With this book by their side, expectant parents will be prepared to take an active role in ensuring a healthy, happy, and truly joyful pregnancy.

    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.

    For women who want an alternative, choice is often unavailable: Midwives are sometimes inaccessible; in eleven states they are illegal. In one of those states, even birthing centers are outlawed.When did birth become an emergency instead of an emergence? Since when is normal, physiological birth a crime? A groundbreaking journalistic narrative, Pushed presents the complete picture of maternity care in America. Crisscrossing the country to report what women really experience during childbirth, Jennifer Block witnessed several births - from a planned cesarean to an underground home birth. Against this backdrop, Block investigates whether routine C-sections, inductions, and epidurals equal medical progress. She examines childbirth as a reproductive rights issue: Do women have the right to an optimal birth experience? If so, is that right being upheld? Block's research and experience reveal in vivid detail that while emergency obstetric care is essential, there is compelling evidence that we are overusing medical technology at the expense of maternal and infant health: Either women's bodies are failing, or the system is failing women.

    A nationally renowned women’s health and fertility expert, Aimee Raupp has helped thousands of women optimize their fertility and get pregnant. Now, in Yes, You Can Get Pregnant, she provides her complete program for improving your chances of conceiving and overcoming infertility, including the most effective complementary and lifestyle approaches, the latest nutritional advice, and ways to prepare yourself emotionally and spiritually. In a friendly, understanding, and inspirational manner, Yes, You Can Get Pregnant provides hope, scientifically-backed knowledge, and emotional support to help you improve your health and fertility from the inside out so that you can become the mother you want to be.

    It’s the feminist issue nobody’s talking about.For too long women have been told, ‘a healthy baby is all that matters’. This book dares to say women matter too.Finally blasting the feminist spotlight into the labour ward, Milli Hill encourages women everywhere to stand and deliver, insisting that birth is no longer left off the list in discussions about female power, control and agency.From the importance of birth plans to your human rights in childbirth, and including birth stories from women across the world, this call-to-arms will help you find your voice, take an active role in your choices, and change the way you think about childbirth.Praise for Give Birth Like a Feminist‘I feel so lucky to have read Milli’s book while pregnant, she completely changed my way of looking at giving birth’ Ella Mills, author of Deliciously Ella

    Lactivate! is a judgment-free advice book with the latest knowledge of breastfeeding, supporting you to make the best decisions for yourself and your family.From solving everyday breastfeeding problems to clearing a plugged milk duct, this guide will help you create the ultimate biological synchronization between you and your child.Unlike other breastfeeding books, Lactivate! includes: First 90 days—Learn helpful information, like how to optimize your breast pump and how to monitor your milk supply. FAQ—When will your milk come in? Are there foods you can’t eat? All your questions are answered. Helpful illustrations—Images show you how your baby should latch and how to identify the fungal infection thrush. The breastfeeding strategies and principles in Lactivate! will allow you to raise your child with confidence.

    Any woman can benefit from Shapiro's hard-won education."--"BUST magazine "Shapiro's memoir . . . offers a welcome real-life complement to weightier breastfeeding advice."--"Brain, Child magazine In this hilarious breastfeeding tell-all--the first of its kind-- Lisa Wood Shapiro recounts her misadventures of new motherhood from the delivery of her daughter and her rookie days as a food source to the bittersweet end of weaning. This may be the information age, but so much of nursing still exists in the smart gal's rumor culture. Only after Shapiro shares her own nursing saga, complete with lactation consultants, chocolate binges, and a new use for green cabbage, do her friends and relatives confess to their own travails. Breastfeeding may be natural, but it is not always instinctual, and one doesn't have to go it alone. There are professionals who can make it work without pain, and it does get easier. Whether or not your breasts have been involved in any world-saving activities, you won't be able to put this book down until you've read the last line.

    In The New Rules of Pregnancy, two leading OB-GYNs guide you, the modern pregnant woman, through all aspects of pregnant life in an easy-to-digest, compassionate, and motivating way. Instead of a detailed week-by-week look at your baby’s development, it’s all about you, and how to help your pregnancy go as smoothly as possible. It assumes an intelligent, busy reader (who, somewhere inside, is shouting, “Just tell me what to do!”). Every aspect of pregnant life is covered—from the practical details (how to fly pregnant) to the complex issues (“What makes it postpartum depression?”). The book also covers that critical “fourth trimester”—“Nursing” and “How to Feel Like Yourself Again”—because once the baby is born, self-care typically goes out the window, and you really need someone to have your back. Its strong point of view and expertise come from gynecologist Adrienne Simone and obstetrician Jaqueline Worth—two renowned New York doctors dedicated to bringing patients the safest, calmest, least invasive pregnancies possible. The book’s voice—motivating, supportive, real—comes from Danielle Claro, coauthor of The New Health Rules.

     Sleep. It’s the most precious commodity, especially when you’re struggling to find it. 'The Baby Sleep Guide' provides simple and easy techniques to help you establish positive sleep habits early on that will pay dividends in the long term. Includes expert support and advice on: • How to settle your baby • Understanding baby sleep cycles • Establishing a night-time routine • Safe sleep Designed to be deliberately concise for time-poor parents, 'The Baby Sleep Guide' offers clear solutions to ensure a good night’s sleep for everyone.

    This indispensable guide provides reassuring, proven approaches to combining medical and natural techniques to ensure the most comfortable pain-free labor possible. In Easy Labor, you'll discover- what to expect during labor, and key factors that affect your comfort- the facts on epidurals, safety concerns, and how effectively they reduce pain- the pros and cons of pain-relief medications- complementary and alternative methods, including water immersion, acupuncture, hypnosis, massage, and birth balls- how your choice of hospital or birth center affects your pain-management options- techniques to calm and eliminate the specific fears and stresses associated with childbirthSo relax and enjoy your pregnancy, with this important book by your side!

    Really recommend it!' Mrs HinchRead this book for an instant pick-me-up. Whether this is your first or fifth baby, The Little Book of Self-Care for New Mums is your handy survival guide to managing the emotional and physical rollercoaster of becoming a new mum.Bringing together decades of experience from a midwife and a doula, you'll find invaluable tips and tricks to boost confidence and calm frazzled nerves - plus answers to all those questions you may be too embarrassed to ask. From creating cooling breast pads with chamomile tea and quick stretches to relieve aching muscles, through to easy recipes to nourish your postnatal body and 5-minute fixes to restore your sense of humour, this is the book you can turn to when the overwhelm sets in. Beautifully illustrated in full-colour, it covers everything you need to know about the postnatal period to feel supported, empowered and understood.

    Motherhood has been targeted by advertisers, and bombarded by opinions masquerading as medical necessities. Massaro and Katz are helping mothers reclaim a simpler, more connected first year with their babies. Readers will find eight fun-to-read chapters filled with baby-friendly practices, along with stories from moms in-the-know. In a soothing yet sassy voice, the authors present compelling research on topics like birth, holding your baby, breastfeeding, infant sleep, pottying babies (yes, really!), sign language, baby-led solids, and self-care for moms. The book also features contributions from leading practitioners in baby care: Dr. James McKenna, Dr. Janet Zand, Naomi Aldort, Gill Rapley, Nancy Mohrbacher, and more.

    Some of Birth Day’s many topics include• The evolution of human childbirth—or, why do gorillas have it so easy?• The first five minutes of life—scuba divers, astronauts, and the amazing adaptations that transform a fetus into an air-breathing, out-in-the-world baby• Cesarean section—a look at its origins, its future, and how it came to be the most frequently performed operation in American hospitals• Pain and politics—the age-old quest for painless childbirth, starring Adam and Eve, Queen Victoria, a nineteenth-century medical brawl, and the rise of today’s “epidural monoculture”• Daddies—raging paternal hormones, hidden anxieties, and the emotional evolution of men (including the author, his father, and grandfather) as they approach fatherhood• The five senses at birth—does light enter the womb? how loud is it in there? what is a newborn baby searching for with those first anxious glances?• A tour of the newborn body—springy skulls, hairy ears, innies and outies, the advantages (and disadvantages) of looking like your father, and why the United States is one of the world’s most circumcised nations.

    

    Not only is it widely considered the best and safest way to deliver a child, natural childbirth empowers women by reinforcing their belief in themselves and their abilities. In Adventures in Natural Childbirth, editor Janet Schwegel taps into this growing movement with a fascinating collection of personal, engaging, and revealing stories from thirty-nine women on their journey through pregnancy, labor, and natural childbirth. These women's tales capture the full range of emotions and physical sensations natural childbirth can evoke—from calm to fear, from elation to pain, and everything in between—and give readers a true sense of the joys and the hardships involved. Divided into sections by caregiver (midwife, doula, physician, or unattended) and complete with essays from practitioners on their roles in natural birth and how they help women achieve their goals, Adventures in Natural Childbirth is essential reading for any woman who is considering—or is simply curious about—giving birth naturally.