Birthing From Within

"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. 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. 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. Pain is an inevtiable part of childbirth but Birthing from Within provides resources for building pain-coping confidence in parents. It gives detailed instructions on dealing with normal labour pain and when the humane use of drugs may be called for."--Cover.

Here is a holistic approach to childbirth that examines this profound rite-of-passage not as a medical event but as an act of self-discovery. 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.

With Mindful Birthing, Nancy Bardacke, nurse-midwife and mindfulness teacher, lays out her innovative program for pregnancy, childbirth, and beyond. 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

The delivery of high quality and equitable care for both mothers and newborns is complex and requires efforts across many sectors. The United States spends more on childbirth than any other country in the world, yet outcomes are worse than other high-resource countries, and even worse for Black and Native American women. There are a variety of factors that influence childbirth, including social determinants such as income, educational levels, access to care, financing, transportation, structural racism and geographic variability in birth settings. It is important to reevaluate the United States' approach to maternal and newborn care through the lens of these factors across multiple disciplines. Birth Settings in America: Outcomes, Quality, Access, and Choice reviews and evaluates maternal and newborn care in the United States, the epidemiology of social and clinical risks in pregnancy and childbirth, birth settings research, and access to and choice of birth settings.

"Britta, you are a master at what you do." —P!NK, Grammy-winning singer-songwriter As expecting parents, you’re bombarded with more information—and opinions—than ever about the “right” approach to pregnancy and childbirth. How do you navigate this ocean of information—not only to find the best practical solutions for you personally, but also to embrace this incredible opportunity for emotional and spiritual transformation that comes from bringing a child into this world? With Transformed by Birth, Dr. Britta Bushnell has created the transformative, intelligent, and empowering pregnancy and childbirth guide you’ve been waiting for. This book embraces birth as a metamorphic experience—a rite of passage in which you are initiated by opening to the unbidden, embodying your own wisdom, and gaining freedom from limiting beliefs. Our culture has inundated us with limiting ideals that prevent us from fully engaging in the journey of pregnancy and childbirth—including a need for control and certainty, vilification of pain, and reverence for technology and intellectual knowledge, among others. Dr. Bushnell helps you clear away unwanted beliefs and behaviors so you can open to the meaning and power of this uniquely life-changing experience. Here she offers daily practices, rituals, exercises, and more to help you cultivate resilience, power, and connection during this transformative time. Childbirth is more than just having a baby. Transformed by Birth invites you to discover childbirth as a transformational experience that alters your knowing of who you are and lasts long after pregnancy and birth are over.

This collection explores birthing in the Pacific against the background of debates about tradition and modernity. A wide-ranging introduction and conclusion, together with case studies from Papua New Guinea, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Fiji, and Tonga, show how simple contrasts between traditional and modern practices, technocratic and organic models of childbirth, indigenous and foreign approaches, and notions of "before" and "after" can be potent but problematic. The difficulties entailed confront public health programs concerned with practical issues of infant and maternal survival in developing countries as well as scholarly analyses of birthing in cross-cultural contexts. The introduction analyzes central concepts and themes: questions of survival, safety, and well-being; the significance of postures, practices, and sites; the role of midwives, traditional birth attendants, and nurses; and the role of men in birthing and reproduction. Contributors--four anthropologists, a historian, and a community health worker--offer insights into the ways mothers, midwives, and nurses relate the traditional and the modern, and how ideas of tradition and modernity have shaped representations of Pacific childbirth. The conclusion provides researchers with a guide to relevant literature from several disciplines. As a whole the collection warns against either a celebration of emancipation through biomedicine or a recuperative romance about women's past powers in reproduction. Contributors: Ruta Fiti-Sinclair, Margaret Jolly, Vicki Lukere, Shelley Mallett, Helen Morton, Christine Salomon.

Blessed Events explores how women who give birth at home use religion to make sense of their births and in turn draw on their birthing experiences to bring meaning to their lives and families. Pamela Klassen introduces a surprisingly diverse group of women, in their own words, while also setting their birth stories within wider social, political, and economic contexts. In doing so, she emerges with a study that disrupts conventional views of both childbirth and religion by blurring assumed divisions between conservative and feminist women and by taking childbirth seriously as a religious act. Most American women who have a choice give birth in a hospital and request pain medication. Yet enough women choose and advocate unmedicated home birth--and do so for carefully articulated reasons, social resistance among them--to constitute a movement. Klassen investigates why women whose religious affiliations range from Old Order Amish to Reform Judaism to goddess-centered spirituality defy majority opinion, the medical establishment, and sometimes the law to have their babies at home. In considering their interpretations--including their critiques of the dominant medical model of childbirth and their views on labor pain--she examines the kinds of agency afforded to or denied women as they derive religious meanings from childbirth. Throughout, she identifies tensions and affinities between feminist and traditionalist appraisals of the symbolic meaning of birth and the power of women. What does home birth--a woman-centered movement working to return birth to women's control--mean in practice for women's gender and religious identities? Is this supreme valuing of procreation and motherhood constraining, or does it open up new realms of cultural and social power for women? By asking these questions while remaining cognizant of religion's significance, Blessed Events challenges both feminist and traditionalist accounts of childbearing while broadening our understanding of how religion is ''lived'' in contemporary America.

The fear and pain most women expect from pregnancy can at last be overcome. Carl Jones, a certified childbirth educator, tells how using mental imagery can help you reduce the pain of labor by controlling the fear beforehand. His easy-to-follow, eight-step method, which teaches your mind to cooperate with your body, will help make your childbirth less stressful and more natural. Whether you plan to give birth at home, in a childbearing center, or in a hospital, Carl Jones's simple exercises will put you in touch with the best instrument of birth there is—yourself.

Describes different approaches to childbirth and their advantages and disadvantages, including midwife delivery and birth centers.

There is a global crisis in maternal health care for black women. In the United States, black women are over three times more likely to perish from pregnancy-related complications than white women; their babies are half as likely to survive the first year. Many black women experience policing, coercion, and disempowerment during pregnancy and childbirth and are disconnected from alternative birthing traditions. This book places black women's voices at the center of the debate on what should be done to fix the broken maternity system and foregrounds black women's agency in the emerging birth justice movement. Mixing scholarly, activist, and personal perspectives, the book shows readers how they too can change lives, one birth at a time.