Gentle Birth Choices: A Guide to Making Informed Decisions

Barbara Harper outlines the elements of gentle birthing: support from loved ones, a reassuring and quiet environment with soft lighting, and minimal medical intervention. She shows you how to plan a meaningful, family-centered birth experience and discusses the many alternatives available, providing a new model of maternity care that reduces the need for high-tech crisis intervention and focuses instead on preparation and good health for mother and child.

With Cesarean section rates in some hospitals at more than 50%, women are acknowledging that childbirth reform is an essential aspect of reclaiming responsibility for our bodies and our lives.

Includes information on:

•  Giving birth in a freestanding birthing center, at home, or in a hospital birthing room.

•  Finding a primary care-giver who shares your philosophy of birth, whether midwife, doctor, or both.

•  Deciding how to best use current technologies.

•  Practical advice for couples wishing to explore the option of waterbirth, a choice  that maximizes the attributes of water as a natural, pain-relieving relaxant and an alternative to drugs and their unwanted side effects. 

Foreword by Robbie E. Davis-Floyd, Ph.D.

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. Gentle Beginnings
Ingredients for a Gentle Birth

2. The Medicalization of Childbirth
Our Legacy of Birth
From Midwife to Physician
The Promise of Science
Pain Relief: The Era of "Twilight Sleep"
Hospital Births for Everyone
Unraveling Diagnostic Procedures
The Results of Medical Intervention

3. Dispelling the Medical Myths
Myth: The Hospital Is the Safest Place to Have a Baby
Myth: Maternity Care Should Be Managed Only by a Physician
Myth: The Electronic Fetal Monitor Will Save Babies
Myth: Once a Cesarean, Always a Cesarean
Myth: Birth Needs to be Sterile
Myth: Drugs for Pain Relief Won't Hurt the Baby
Myth: An Episiotomy Heals Better Than a Tear
Myth: It's Better Not to Eat or Drink During Labor
Myth: Family and Friends Interfere During Birth
Myth: If You Are Over Thirty-Five, Your Birth Will Be More Difficult
Myth: Boys Need to be Circumcised

4. A Gentle Revolution
Birth without Fear
Birth without Pain
Birth without Violence
Birth Reborn
Birth without Rules
Voice of Protest--Consumers Seek Change

5. Midwifery in America--An Emerging Tradition
The Midwife Model of Maternity Care
Midwifery Education--Education versus Experience
Midwives Confront the System
Midwifery in the Future

6. Water Births
Why Water Birth?
Water Birth History
Beyond the Leboyer Bath
Labor Pools in France
Water Birth Comes to America
Making Waves in California
Water Birth Around the World
Questions Everyone Asks About Water Births
Water Works

7. The Mind-Body Connection
Mind-Body Response
Listening to the Body
Listening to the Baby
Visualization for a Gentle Birth
The Power of Prayer
The Sexuality of Childbirth
Redesigning Prenatal Preparation
Mind, Body, Spirit in Unity

8. Creating Gentle Birth Choices
Planning Your Birth
Consumers Create Choices
Health Care for All Women and Children by the year 2000

Appendix A: Questions to Ask a Doctor
Appendix B: Questions to Ask a Midwife
Appendix C: Sample Birth Plan for a Hospital Birth
Appendix D: Procedures and Protocols for Hydrotherapy for Labor and Birth
Appendix E: Sample Letter to Hospital
Appendix F: Resources
Appendix G: Maternity Health Index

Endnotes

Bibliography

Index