I read this book for the first time probably four years ago, when we were nowhere near thinking about having a baby. But I was super-curious about the whole childbirth experience, and this book definitely provided me with the information I was craving! This also would make it into my “Top 5 Pregnancy and Childcare Books.”
Ina May Gaskin wrote her first book, _Spiritual Midwifery_, in the 70s, chronicling her experiences and tips as a very hippie midwife. She and her husband founded The Farm community in Kentucky, and she has been delivery babies there for over 30 years. _Ina May’s Guide_ is written to be more accessible and practical for today’s non-hippie readers.
Here are some of my favorite things about the _Guide_:
* *Stories.* The first half of the book is devoted to stories written by various mothers under Ina May’s care about their birth experiences. I love reading about how different everyone’s experiences were, how they overcame struggles in the labor process, and their reflections on what contributed to the positive or negative feelings they had about the labor afterward.
* *The Sphincter Law.* The second half of the _Guide_ educates the reader about the interaction of biological and psychological factors in labor and birth. One of my favorite chapters is about “The Sphincter Law.” Ina May believes that sphincters used in birth and elimination are especially sensitive to a person’s level of relaxation and safety. To a woman who is feeling uncertain and out of control in labor, yelling at her to “PUSH!” is not actually going to help the baby come out, just like how it wouldn’t help to have someone yelling at you outside your own bathroom. ‘Nuff said.
* *Freedom of Movement.* Gaskin explains why lying on one’s back isn’t always the most productive position for pushing a baby out, and offers lots of other suggestions of positions that can use gravity to aid your pushing. She, like many other natural childbirth advocates, encourages mothers to find whatever position feels most comfortable to them.
Favorite quote: “When Jessica Mitford, author of _The American Way of Birth_, sought to describe the essence of birth, she reverted to her mother’s description (as women often do): ‘It’s like trying to push an orange out through your nostril.’ I liked everything in her book but this statement. Birth is nothing at all like pushing an orange out of a nostril. Nostrils weren’t created to do anything of the kind.”
This book (and other books about natural childbirth) gives me courage to believe that my body can do this pushing-the-baby-out thing. I have never done it before! And it is hard to believe that a baby will really come out of me. I’m glad for these authors and their belief that the female body is perfectly designed to create and birth a baby. And I’m glad that God made my body this way!
Considered in this review: “_Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth_”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0553381156/octothorppres-20, by Ina May Gaskin.