What you need to know to have the best birth experience for you.

In 1976, Ina May Gaskin wrote "Spiritual Midwifery," the handbook for midwives now in its 4th edition with 600,000 copies sold. Gaskin now shares with all women her knowledge and wisdom about what she calls the "true capacities of the female body, " based on her more than three decades as a midwife.

Drawing upon her thirty-plus years of experience, Ina May Gaskin shares the benefits and joys of natural childbirth by showing women how to trust in the ancient wisdom of their bodies for a healthy and fulfilling birthing experience. Based on the female-centered Midwifery Model of Care, Ina May’s Guide to Natural Childbirth gives expectant mothers comprehensive information on everything from the all-important mind-body connection to how to give birth without technological intervention.

Filled with inspiring birth stories and practical advice, this invaluable resource includes:

• Reducing the pain of labor without drugs--and the miraculous roles touch and massage play
• What really happens during labor
• Episiotomy--is it really necessary?
• Common methods of inducing labor--and which to avoid at all costs
• Tips for maximizing your chances of an unmedicated labor and birth
• How to avoid postpartum bleeding--and depression
• The risks of anesthesia and cesareans--what your doctor
doesn’t necessarily tell you
• The best ways to work with doctors and/or birth care providers
• How to create a safe, comfortable environment for
birth in any setting, including a hospital
• And much more

This amazing book takes the fear out of childbirth, recasting it as the positive experience it should be, and includes inspiring and instructive birth stories from women who have used the midwifery model of care at The Farm. Because Gaskin knows that women who believe in their own power to give birth are able to do so more easily, she packs this volume with information that will empower women in the birth process.

She provides numerous suggestions for how a woman can maximize her chances for spontaneous birth, including: *creating a safe, comfortable environment for birth in any setting, including a hospital *the best ways for women to work with their doctors and/or birth care providers *how to avoid specific medical procedures that can hinder labor *what makes for such great differences in women's experience of birth *the risks and reasons not to have epidurals, episiotomies, C-sections, and other medical interventions *and much, much more.

Author Biography

Ina May Gaskin is founder and director of the Farm Midwifery Center, located near Summertown, Tennessee. She has lectured all over the world at midwifery conferences and at medical schools, both to students and to faculty. The Farm is noted for its low rates of intervention, morbidity and mortality. Recently selected as a Visiting Fellow at Morse College of Yale University, Ina May also teaches midwifery, writes books and articles for medical journals and edits her quarterly journal, The Birth Gazette.