Ina May's Guide to Childbirth

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The best way I know to counter the effects of frightening stories is to hear or read empowering ones. I mean stories that change you because you read or heard them, because the teller of the story taught you something you didn't know before or helped you look at things from a different angle than you ever had before. For this reason, Part I of this book is largely devoted to stories told by women who planned to have home or birth-center births with me and my midwife partners. You may find this part of the book to be the one you want to read the most during pregnancy. At The Farm, the only horror stories we shared were those of previous births in which the care had been radically different from that given by Farm midwives. As women began to have positive experiences giving birth, their stories helped to calm the fears and worries of those who had not yet had babies. The confidence that these women gained from one another was a significant factor in why the midwifery care at The Farm has produced such good results. Ina May Gaskin has been a longtime teacher of midwifery and is the author of ‘Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth,’‘Spiritual Midwifery,’ and ‘Birth Matters,’ among other titles. She is recognized as an authority on mother-led birth who caters to what the mother needs to have a positive and healthy birth. To get a better understanding of giving birth without fear, we recommend reading her books on Childbirth and Breastfeeding! Gaskin, Ina May (2012). Ina May's Guide to Childbirth. New York: Bantam Books. ISBN 9780553381153. OCLC 826306709. The first half of the book is birth stories, most of them seemed to date from the 70's and were well...kinda hippy-ish. I got so annoyed with them and the tree-hugger vibes that I ended up only reading about half the stories then skipping to the second part. I believe that pain during childbirth is something that shouldn’t be attempted to be eliminated out of fear or the belief that you cannot handle it, but we should learn to cope with it, something in Gaskin’s book with which I agree. Again, modern medicine’s ability to dull that pain is an incredible achievement that has aided many women who have had difficult, complicated labors, but I don’t think that these methods should be turned to simply because of a dislike of pain. Books like this exist because women have had a variety of birth experiences, all with their pros and cons that deserve to be heard and taken seriously.

All right, those griefs being aired, I actually did like this book, and I'm glad I read it. First of all, the birth experiences at the beginning, while somewhat nauseating, were also very encouraging. They were all so different from the birth stories you normally hear, and it made me happy to know that natural childbirth really can be an extremely positive experience. Giving birth is not something women need to be "saved" from by medical intervention. In Part 2, Ina May covers a variety of helpful topics including why we see birth pain as something to avoid, advice for birthing at a hospital, different models of maternity care, and necessary and unnecessary interventions that may be offered or encouraged. She quells a lot of anxieties women may have about how they are going to birth a baby out of such a small space (not an uncommon concern)… Even if you don’t read the book, it’s at least worth looking into her idea of Sphincter Law and how this affects the laboring process. It was fascinating and explains the ideal environment for birth. If you’re pregnant, I would recommend skipping her chapter on maternal mortality in the US if you think this may increase your anxiety. I had a beautiful baby boy, born around 11:50 p.m. with hardly any head molding. He wanted to relax before nursing. We looked him over, then gave him to Joanne to weigh and dress while Deborah and Pamela gave me two stitches for a small tear.Ms. Gaskin has lectured widely to midwives and physicians throughout the world. Her promotion of a low-intervention but extremely effective method for dealing with one of the most-feared birth complications, shoulder dystocia, has resulted in that method being adopted by a growing number of practitioners. The Gaskin maneuver is the first obstetrical procedure to be named for a midwife. Her statistics for breech deliveries and her teaching video on the subject have helped to spark a reappraisal of the policy of automatically performing cesarean section for all breech babies. As the occurrence of vaginal breech births has declined over the last 25 years, the knowledge and skill required for such births have come close to extinction. Burfoot, Annette (1991). "Midwifery: An Appropriate(d) Symbol of Women's Reproductive Rights?" (PDF). Issues in Reproductive and Genetic Engineering. 4 (2): 119–127 . Retrieved 23 April 2018.

In retrospect, I guess I felt sort of invincible. I thought I was set for a totally empowering, but challenging (of course) birth experience. I sort of imagined I would be like this earth mother goddess, trusting my instincts and allowing my body to do exactly what it was designed to do. After all, how could it go wrong? I was very healthy, have practiced yoga for over 10 years, have a high pain tolerance, was super prepared etc...

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In 2003, she was made a Visiting Fellow of Morse College, Yale University. [18] She was awarded an honorary doctorate in recognition of her work demonstrating the effectiveness and safety of midwifery by Thames Valley University, England, on November 24, 2009. [19]

a b TEDx Talks (2013-07-16), Reducing fear of birth in U.S. culture: Ina May Gaskin at TEDxSacramento, archived from the original on 2021-12-21 , retrieved 2019-04-25 Induced and Seduced: The Dangers of Cytotec. in Mothering, July-August, 2001. Retrieved: 2006-08-26. Gaskin has been credited with the emergence and popularization of direct-entry midwifery (i.e. not training as a nurse first) in the United States since the early 1970s. Between 1977 and 2000, she published the quarterly magazine Birth Gazette. Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth, her second book about birth and midwifery, was published by Bantam/Dell in 2003. Her books have been published in several languages, including German, Italian, Hungarian, Slovenian, Spanish, and Japanese. Ron was impressed that the birth cottage had hospital equipment to stabilize an infant in an emergency. He was also impressed with the fact that the midwives were emergency medical technicians and very qualified in their work. He decided to go along with a birthing at The Farm if our insurance would cover it. We found out in a few days that it would. The TLDR version is yes I recommend this book but its not always impartial and reflects the times of its original writing so take it with a grain of salt. Also keep in mind that like most pregnancy & childbirth books out there this is HEAVILY influenced by the disaster that is the US medical system.

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The next day I felt so good. I looked at the clear blue November sky and the brown oak leaves left on the trees and basked in the warmth of the sun. I realized that I was truly blessed, that there really were some things on which technology could not improve—one of those was the billion-year-old evolutionary process of human childbirth. To some it may have seemed primitive; to me it was perfect.