That said, though, there are perfectly valid reasons why some of us do give birth in hospitals, and not all hospital births are the nightmare that natural childbirth books make them out to be. I do definitely recommend this one, but I also recommend reading other books to fill out a more balanced view, unless you are definitely giving birth under the stars on a hippie commune and your chances of winding up in a hospital are extremely low. Going into it with that specific plan is great, but I think women need to realize it doesn't always work out this way.

There is a section towards the end which deals with maternal death and I have not managed to read this yet as it is obviously a very sensitive subject. I plan to go without pain meds for as long as I can but if labor goes on too long, or gets to be too much, or if I have to be induced (which is looking likely) I am open to the meds. It is informative, well written, and provides invaluable support in helping women to make their own birth decisions in a society that sometimes forgets how important the mental wellbeing of the mother is. I appreciated the positive attitude toward the body and the amazing things it can do if you just let it.If you're skeptical that you're going to be able to move a small person from one of your internal organs to the world via your vaginal opening, Ina May will clear all that up for you.

Drawing on over 40 years’ experience, internationally acclaimed midwife Ina May Gaskin shows you how to use the mind-body connection to help labour progress calmly and safely. Even if this book is "pro-midwife" or "anti-hospital," how many hundreds of books are out there that completely ignore the points that Ina May raises in this book? So much of what I read just made me more scared (even though I tried to avoid the triggering stuff, the loss stories, the bad outcomes). This book is very anti-hospital, and even though it claims that fear causes pain, it actually instills fear of the medical system.There will still be women who read Ina May and feel threatened or as if they should feel guilty for not doing birth naturally, but I think this interpretation is misread. Here's the thing (and I'm finally getting to the book review part of this review, I promise): Motherhood has become a competitive sport in our culture.

Ina May Gaskin is founder and director of the Farm Midwifery Center, located near Summertown, Tennessee. We do everything we can to take pain away through drugs, positive thinking, and through the newest craze of self-care: eliminating everything from our lives that cause us discomfort. The second half of the book comprises Gaskin's own views of childbirth, largely based on the argument that there is too much medical intervention for mothers, and not enough control given to the mother during labour. In Part 2, Ina May covers a variety of helpful topics including why we see birth pain as something to avoid, advice for birthing at a hospital, different models of maternity care, and necessary and unnecessary interventions that may be offered or encouraged.

I attached one horror story from a hospital and a small part of a weird hippie story of a lady coming to a home birth to "experience contractions" with a woman who actually gives birth, both naked. I think she makes traditional clinical medicine and those that work in that field unnecessarily sterile and frightening while painting midwives and homebirth with rose colored glasses.