Ten Speed Press Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering: A Doctor's Guide to Natural Childbirth and Gentle Early Parenting Choices

This is evidence based book that talk about all things on birth and pregnancy and the findings making things much simpler

This is a good book to read before your first child (or any child,) especially if you are concerned about the current hospital situation in the United States. It sheds light on many procedures that are done simply because they are standard practice, not necessarily because they are important. If you're trying to decide what's best for you & your baby, this is a great book to read. As with all books, read with an open mind—take what works for you and leave the rest. I appreciated the insights from a medical doctor & mother, on ultrasounds, home birth, medical procedures, and more.

Dr. Sarah Buckley’s book Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering is a written reclamation of every woman’s birth right!Through these chapters, we journey between worlds~ the medical, the natural and the personal, and are invited to explore all with an open mind and intuitive heart to make an informed choice. She reminds us that through Healing birth, we are healing the Earth; taking us back in time to when birth was a powerful initiation for our ancestral mothers; a rite of passion, love, power and surrender. Where birth meets death, and death meets life- like the changing of Mother Earth’s Seasons, of the moons phases, of the natural cycle of all life where “birth is as safe as life gets”. Her hopes in writing this book is that each woman recognizes the “importance of taking the time to think and feel...of using heart and mind to make the choices that best serves our Children to be, our families, and ourselves”Through each of the trimesters,she shares her own stories of pregnancies, birth and Beyond, weaving in the intuitive and nature(al) ways of pregnancy and,the dance of birth intertwining with informative research and scientific knowledge about the nourishment of breastfeeding, the benefits and dangers of medical interventions and...”when to leave well enough alone.”In the poetic and magical words of Sarah, “Finally...birth is vast and multifaceted; radiant and mysterious. Birth contains multitudes, and through her we birth our multitudes. We give birth to our hopes and fears, to our ecstasies and our agonies, to our joy and our disappointments. We give birth to our babies, each one perfect and radiant. We give birth through our instinct,which will match us perfectly with our babies, who are, and always will be, instinctive creatures.May we all be blessed through instinctive birth”.

Knowledgeable author, personal experiences as well as extensive research listed, very interesting read.

Recommend for every expecting mom.

I'm a bit disappointed by this book. I'm about halfway through and I do find that it contains useful information, so I plan to finish it. However, I do find the author's way of talking about her own birthing stories a bit woo-woo for me (not what I was expecting from a doctor), which was a bit off-putting at first. I also find that the first part of the book (the part focused on pregnancy and birth) focuses a lot on the horrible things that can happen if you have medical interventions -- rather than focusing on how to actually try to have a natural pregnancy/birth. Reading it, I find myself just feeling more afraid that interventions will be imposed on me rather than feeling empowered or better informed about how to move forward with my goals of natural birth. That being said, I do like learning about the medical research, so it's interesting. But if I had to buy it again, I probably wouldn't.