Sheila Kitzinger

Birth and sex are often talked about as if they were contrasting experiences. In fact, they each involve the same rush of hormones in an action drama in which mind and body work in harmony. When a woman is free to follow her instincts and give birth naturally, waves of endorphins surge in the bloodstream with the same energy as in ecstatic ......

Birth and Sex

Birth Your Way

A guide to pregnancy and childbirth provides all the information women need to make decisions about prenatal tests, pain control, and how and where to give birth, with advice on the development of the fetus, body changes, and labor preparation techniques.

The Complete Book of Pregnancy & Childbirth

Explores ways in which we learn about birth, how we talk and feel about it, assumptions that professional caregivers may make, and the roles and skills of midwives.

The Politics of Birth

A leading birth expert and author of Pregnancy and Childbirth presents a thought-provoking, richly illustrated study of the the universal experience of pregnancy and childbirth, discussing the emotional aspects of pregnancy, the physical and spiritual aspects of the birth experience, and the cultural influences involved.

Rediscovering Birth

The Experience of Breastfeeding

Denis Walsh

Norman Ellis

This title includes Foreword by Sheila Kitzinger, Writer, Researcher, Activist and Honorary Professor, Wolfson School of Health Sciences, Thames Valley University. Birth centres are suitable for every woman whose birth is straightforward, which accounts for around 75 per cent of all women. This inspirational guide shows how small scale maternity provision has a profound clinical and organisational advantage over large scale hospital provision, including saving of time and money by reducing intervention rates. It presents the thoughts and feelings of midwives and patients and how both enjoy the humane and compassionate care of the birth centre ethos. The book is invaluable for midwives, obstetricians, doulas, maternity care assistants and maternity service planners and managers. It also provides enlightening information for general practitioners and other health and social care professionals, maternity service users groups and academics with an interest in midwifery and health services. "What birth centres do best is simply providing humane childbirth care. There are no high tech gadgetry, doctors or dramatic stories of childbirth rescues that make it into the media. Yet 'miracles' happen inside their walls every day as women have their babies after normal labours and births. Until now, there have been very few books detailing what happens in birth centres so that women and childbirth professionals can be introduced to an alternative beyond the large hospital model. This book provides a window in on the birth centre model and there are some exciting things to find there about childbirth care in the 21st century." - Denis Walsh, in the Preface. "Denis Walsh has one of the most incisive, analytical and brilliant minds in nursing and midwifery research today. He demonstrates the difference between a quality environment for birth where a woman can create her own 'nest', and a technocratic, bureaucratically controlled, highly medicalised and risk-oriented birth culture dominated by the clock, which is most women's experience today." - Sheila Kitzinger, in the Foreword.

The Epidemiologically Based Needs Assessment Reviews, Vol 2

Improving Maternity Services

Looks at the pros and cons of home birth, suggests preparations, explains the role of midwives, and shares women's experiences

The Essential Guide to Giving Birth Outside of the Hospital

Homebirth

Photographs and text describe the baby's nine-month journey from conception to birth. Suggested level: intermediate, secondary.

Being Born

Kitzinger, a social anthropologist, explores the experience of grandmotherhood both personally and historically based on detailed research.

A Life Transition

Becoming a Grandmother

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

Choosing Birth at Home Or in a Birth Center

Ourselves as Mothers

A wide-ranging study of motherhood as experienced all over the world demonstrates that, far from being inborn, much maternal behavior is shaped by cultural pressures

Women as Mothers

Att vänta och föda barn

John A. Davis

A Study of the Environment in which Birth Takes Place with Special Reference to Home Confinements

The Place of Birth

This book focuses on a woman's experience during her physically, emotionally, and socially turbulent first year as a mother.

The Year After Childbirth

One new mother in twenty is diagnosed with traumatic stress after childbirth. In Birth Crisis Sheila Kitzinger explores the disempowerment and anxiety experienced by these women. Key topics discussed include: increasing intervention in pregnancy the shift in emphasis from relationships to technology in childbirth how family, friends and professional caregivers can reach out to traumatized mothers how women can work through stress to understand themselves more deeply and grow in emotional maturity how care and the medical system needs to be changed. Birth Crisis draws on mothers' voices and real-life experiences to explore the suffering after childbirth which has, until now, been brushed under the carpet. It is a fascinating and useful resource for student and practising midwives, all health professionals, and women and their families who want to learn how to overcome a traumatic birth.

Birth Crisis

Helps parents interpret a baby's cries and find ways to meet the child's needs, while also dealing with their own guilt, frustration, anger, and exhaustion

Sheila Kitzinger

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