Birth Book Recommendations
two birth books that never leave my nightstand when I’m pregnant in preparation for birth.✨👆🏽
Ina May Gaskins has been with me for 5 years since I was pregnant with Bodhi and I literally can never lend it out because it’s my birth bible and I hold such a place in my heart for it.
Both books discuss the physiology that happens as women birth. They also discuss the emotional and spiritual components of birth that modern day culture often misses.
Ina May’s:
🌱first half of the book is birth stories from other women (these can be so empowering as we as women are all connected!!)
🌱second half is birth physiology
Rachel Reed’s:
🌱goes over birth history and traditions (so important to see why things have changed)
🌱blends with modern day approaches and interventions that hinder/empower women spiritually for the rest of their lives
For example:
🤍Most woman who experience drug free/natural/physiological birth are interacting straight with Mother Nature. For example a surge of hormones that prevent your perineum from tearing during crowning, being fully intact post birth. This same surge of hormone will not occur with a women who had received Pitocin (induction)/Epidural, etc.
Another example: Epidural can stall labour, Pitocin is then administered to pick contractions back up, causing increase BP and heart rate for baby, possibly leading to emergency c-section.
These are just two slivers of knowledge from these books that empower and educate women to stand firm in their decisions throughout labour and allow them to make informed choices.
Advocating for yourself and your birth could never be more important in the technocratic birthing spaces we are subjected to today. Through my journey I have met countless women who have had life changing empowering births and also many women who are still suffering from the trauma they experienced during theirs.
There is so much to learn before this day. I am still learning new things every day and this is my 4th birth.
Going into this experience informed and educated is so crucial to your outcome.
