Rating: 
Summary: A MUST READ for any pregnant woman!
Review: Whether you plan to have a natural birth experience or prefer to use drugs for the pain, you must read this book first. It will tell you all the things your Dr. never will. You'll be so much more informed about your options and so much more comfortable with your choices!! I am 3 weeks from my due date at this writing. Between this book and the book "The Thinking Women's Guide to a Better Birth" I have such a different outlook on child birth and I am actually looking forward to delivery day. I had no idea what possible complications could be caused by medical interventions and I also had no idea how to get through child birth naturally, until I read these books. I would also recommend a childbirth class/method other than Lamazze. I took Imagery Birthing which is based on Hypnobirthing. The idea is to practice imagery, relaxed breathing and help your mind get out of your bodies' way when it's time for the baby to be born. You could also use The Bradley Method. Remember, you are not an ill patient when you go to the hospital to have a baby - it is a role women are made for and it shouldn't require you to be hooked up to all kinds of machines, medications and procedures. Good luck to all you expectant mom's!
Rating:
Summary: Creative Fun Positive & Empowering Approach to Birthing
Review: I've read about 10 books on birth preparation & pregnancy. If I had to choose one, this would be it. It makes the pregnancy process a JOY, not an academic class or a sermon from the medical mountain or the hippie commune.Unlike most childbirth prep books on the market, this one prepares the whole woman for the glory, the pain, and the creative explosion of birth. It does not detail all the scary medical stuff that could possibly go wrong (as most of them do - Don't they know we're nervous enough when we're pregnant!) Mothers-to-be, this book will empower you with stories of birthing women all over the world and all through history. It will take you through fun artistic ways to open your creative doors, preparing not just your left brain, but also your fantastic feminine right brain for the big event. I found that the "birth art" - actually little stick figure sketches - that I created via the book's process helped me come to grips with my hidden fears & anxieties about birthing. Once they were explored through the art, I felt SO much more powerful and confident about my ability to give birth. The information on pain and various methods of pain-management was truthful, balanced, and helpful in preparing for the big day & dealing with anxiety about the big pain issue. Buy this book. And do the art stuff - you do NOT have to be an artist. It is just so FUN!
Rating: 
Summary: Not into the art stuff AT ALL- but very empowering
Review: In natural birth - PAIN IS A REALITY! Pain is my biggest fear, and this book offers fabulous coping techniques and methods to pratice them before labor using ice cubes as the pain for you to manage. Women I mentioned this to said that was a very ingenious method they wish they could've used. The art stuff I just skipped over.. I don't know how one reviewer thinks this focuses on New Mexico and Indians, the author refers to women all over the world who birth naturally and how us Westernized women can empower ourselves with these other women's natural strengths and resources to get through labor. I mean, c'mon, we wimp out at a headache and have Advil at our fingertips.. we Americans don't deal with pain very well. This book DOES NOT BEAT DOWN HOSPITALS NOR DOES IT GIVE NOTHING BUT HORROR STORIES! Even though homebirth is ideal, the book offers many ways to make the hospitals more comforting, and relaxing (and stories of how it worked for others). Howling like a coyote is not what she recommends! Any form of vocalization is encouraged, even chanting the f-word if that's what suits you. Vocalization is natural and helps cope with pain. The howling happened in one of the classes only to get women comfortable with making noise. Most of us are embarrassed to, and are shushed by the hospital staff in labor. I am certainly not going to use all the techniques here, but the imagery and pain techniques and ways to progress labor effectively are INSPIRING! I can't wait to try them out when I give birth this summer.
Rating:
Summary: Creative Fun Positive & Empowering Approach to Birthing
Review: I've read about 10 books on birth preparation & pregnancy. If I had to choose one, this would be it. It makes the pregnancy process a JOY, not an academic class or a sermon from the medical mountain or the hippie commune. Unlike most childbirth prep books on the market, this one prepares the whole woman for the glory, the pain, and the creative explosion of birth. It does not detail all the scary medical stuff that could possibly go wrong (as most of them do - Don't they know we're nervous enough when we're pregnant!) Mothers-to-be, this book will empower you with stories of birthing women all over the world and all through history. It will take you through fun artistic ways to open your creative doors, preparing not just your left brain, but also your fantastic feminine right brain for the big event. I found that the "birth art" - actually little stick figure sketches - that I created via the book's process helped me come to grips with my hidden fears & anxieties about birthing. Once they were explored through the art, I felt SO much more powerful and confident about my ability to give birth. The information on pain and various methods of pain-management was truthful, balanced, and helpful in preparing for the big day & dealing with anxiety about the big pain issue. Buy this book. And do the art stuff - you do NOT have to be an artist. It is just so FUN!
Rating:
Summary: Empowering Book!
Review: This book gently guides women to examine their own fears and assumptions about birth so that they can choose the place where they will feel most comfortable and supported giving birth. For me, this happens to be at home with a midwife, my husband, my mother and 2 trusted and fearless female friends (I also live 3 blocks from a hospital with an NICU). What I like about this book is its emphasis on discovering what makes YOU comfortable, not some ideal birth situation that the author has in mind. I had just assumed that I wanted a hospital birth, since I work with children with disabilities and wanted the "safest" place in which to give birth. As I read the chapter on home birth (which the author almost did not put into the book), I was amazed to read what the actual research said about home births and hospital births and safety issues. It took me a couple of weeks of working my way through the book, but I realized in a flash that I did not want to give birth in a hospital! Again, this is the right choice for ME, not the ONLY right choice. Luckily, my husband was very interested from the start in a home birth as well. There are also some very helpful techniques in the book for coping with the intense sensations surrounding labor and delivery, and wonderful right-brain practices for uncovering and facing fears you may have regarding your images of childbirth pain, past birth experiences you may have had, inadequacy as a mother, etc. This book is empowering and illuminating. It helped me move from feeling and behaving like a passenger in the vehicle of pregnancy-birth to being in the driver's seat. It is a great antidote to what books like "What to Expect" tell you about birth options and strategies for coping with sensations and fears. I also was relieved and so pleased that an author finally had the courage to write about an aspect of birth that is usually ignored in almost ALL childbirth books: the spiritual aspect. This book acknowledges that pregnancy and birth are not just about a physical process, but about the birth of a new being, a mother, and a family.
Rating:
Summary: From midwife to midwife
Review: Like Pam England, I am also a certified nurse-midwife. My midwifery journey has my train currently stationed at Birthing From Within. The framework this book provides is allowing me a context from which to help women that I never received in my midwifery education or my own pregnancy and mothering experience. The book highlights what happens in the BFW classroom, the real transformative journey. If there is any way that you can take a BFW series in your pregnancy, it will be a life changing event that will help you see your pregnancy, birth, and parenting from a very deep spiritual, emotional, and intimate way. BFW can create the connectedness to your soul, your partner, your baby, and your family that is your heart's desire. BFW answers those deep hidden questions that are part of your belief system that you most assuredly don't even know are there, driving your choices for your entire pregnancy journey. BFW also promotes midwifery as the model of choice and I hope it creates more midwifery converts, especially those that have done the required hard internal, personal work that it takes to be truly "with women".
Rating:
Summary: An insightful guide to creating your unique, positive birth
Review: Even though I am hoping for an unmedicated birth in a hospital, I thought this book would be "too alternative" for me. However, I am so thankful that I read this at the suggestion of my doula - who happens to be a Birthing from Within instructor. There are definitely some passages that don't mesh with my personal preferences and birth philosophy, but I was able to overlook those and find some truly wonderful morsels of wisdom that touched me. After all, every birth and every woman is different, so you don't have to follow the book to the letter or believe in every opinion presented. For me, the most helpful aspect of this book was the assumption that the birth would take place in a hospital. What have become routine procedures for birth in most hospitals scare me very much, so I have chosen a doctor and birth attendants who support my decision for a natural, intervention-free birth. However, most books I have read that share my viewpoint are extremely anti-hospital and only serve to increase my anxiety level. (I did consider home birth - my first choice - but ultimately decided against it for various reasons.) Although "Birthing from Within" contains some horrible stories of hospital births, I appreciated that the book's focus is on making a hospital birth a rewarding experience, NOT trying to avoid a hospital birth. It provided me with techniques for working through my fears of the hospital and ways I can cope if events don't go exactly as I hope. The section for fathers is perhaps my favorite part of the book because it is so well-written and contains some wonderful advice. I also was thrilled to read the chapter on "baby-proofing your marriage." Before reading "Birthing from Within", I had yet to come across a birth book that positively addressed the impact of a baby on marriage, if it addressed the issue at all. Not that this book looks at the issue from behind rose-tinted glasses! But it prompts discussion before the baby's arrival, so couples are prepared. Overall, this book has not only positively encouraged me to work on my personal beliefs and fears about birth, but has also provided my husband and me with some valuable discussion points so we can both approach the impending birth of our first child with confidence. I encourage all mothers-to-be to read this book with an open mind. Some suggestions may work for you, others may not; use what speaks to you to create the birth experience that fits YOU.
Rating: 
Summary: I want options, not opinions
Review: I like the idea of this book, but the reality of it just didn't work for me. This book is VERY judgemental about the choice to have a hospital birth. It pounds into your head seveeral times about how awful hospital birth is. This might have been true for my mother's or even grandmother's generation, but now, a hospital is a consumer oriented environment. The hospital I've chosen (I'm 31 weeks) has you check into the same room that you deliver in. It looks like a hotel (except for the flooring). The baby sleeps and stays in your room, and only goes to the nursery if you or your husband accompany him/her. I've known and trusted my doctor for 4 years, why on earth would I trust my baby's life with some stranger/midwife? What if something bad happens? Midwifes just don't have the training for that. I just couldn't be comfortable with that. If this book even mentioned that there are cases where you can have a great birthing experience (ie "birthing from within") in a hospital, then I wouldn't be so turned off by it. I live in California and consider myself spiritual, which is why I got this book. I like to read about my options, and this book didn't even mention the remote possiblity that hospitals have changed since the author was a nurse 25 years ago. She never said one single nice thing about hospitals. All stories given were negative.
So that's my opinion on this book. However, IF you are planning on having a home birth and have no desire for an epidural, then this book gives some really good advice on pain management techniques. The bottom line is whatever decision you make, it's the best one for you, and nobody has the right to decide that for you or judge you.
Rating: 
Summary: Howling like a coyote???????? No thank you!
Review: First off, this was honestly one of the scariest reads ever. It put me in the mind of a "hippy-esque cult" type of deal. A majority of the book focuses on being creative through mediums such as drawing, painting, and sculpting. I'm completely for spirituality, creativity and natural childbirth, but being a first time mom, I have a feeling that all the spiritual and creative mumbo jumbo thrown at me in this book is just setting me up for the ultimate rude awakening when I actually go into labor. And if howling like a coyote will benefit me in any way, I seriously doubt it. I, being a free-thinker and very openminded, could find very little useful in this book. Even though I've been thrust into the category of a "hippie" my whole life, this puts me more in mind of a cult!
Rating:
Summary: A TRULY objective, NON-judgmental book about birth.
Review: I read this book last summer when pregnant with my second child. I wish I had read it before the birth of my daughter. Re-inforced my childbirth decisions - not because the author agreed with them, but because I was helped to realize that I made my choices from a place of strength and empowerment within myself - not based on advice from others or strictly based on the guidance of a physician or midwife. This book is LIFE-CHANGING and is a must-read not only for pregnant women, but expectant fathers, mothers of pregnant daughters and all people who work with pregnant women as a profession. BEAUTIFULLY written with lots of real-life stories and TONS of heart and soul! I LOVE THIS BOOK!
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