The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth

As an intelligent woman, you are probably used to learning as much as you can before making major decisions. But when it comes to one of the most important decisions of your life--how you will give birth—it is hard to gather accurate, unbiased information. Surprisingly, much of the research does not support common medical opinion and practice.

Birth activist Henci Goer gives clear, concise information based on the latest medical studies. The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth helps you compare and contrast your various options and shows you how to avoid unnecessary procedures, drugs, restrictions, and tests. The book covers:

Cesareans
Breech babies
Inducing labor
Electronic Fetal Monitoring
Rupturing Membranes
Coping with slow labor
Pain medication
Epistiotomy
Vaginal birth after a Ceasarean
Doulas
Deciding on a doctor or midwife
Choosing where to have your baby
and much more . . .

Customer Reviews:

Full of Important Information for Birthing Couples

By Kelly "kelly" - July 31, 2001

This is the best book I've ever seen in regards to condensing current research on childbirth into readable and understandable terms. The author gives clear and concise descriptions of various OB procedures and interventions that are easy to follow. She gives pros and cons of each [working within her own bias, which she does freely admit]. I think this would be an excellent book for any couple expecting an uncomplicated birth to read. This is information that every pregnant woman *should* have access to in order to make good decisions. However, there is definitely an anti-OB bias [which the author admits] and this isn't a book designed to make you feel all warm and fuzzy about a hospital birth. Be aware of that going into this - the author raises very important but possibly disturbing points for those planning a hospital birth with an Obstetrician in attendance. My only dissappointment with the book is that there was no chapter on assisted delivery [vacuum cap and forceps]... read more

Excellent Information- A Few Drawbacks

By "leslie-olson" - June 8, 2003

Although I expected a natural birth perspective (which I share), I was disappointed in the book's overwhelmingly negative tone toward OB's. I would have prefered a balanced, relatively objective discussion. I expected it from a book called The Thinking Womans Guide.... If the stats are so glaring, a balanced discussion is better than dogmatics.This is an excellent book for those who have decided to give birth naturally. It is not one to recommend to friends to help them make the decision about their birth. It will turn many women off. A better book for an introduction to the benefits of natural birth and the drawbacks of managed care is Pregnancy, Childbirth and the Newborn by Penny Simkin.

Very Important Information, highly recommended

By Erka16 - October 22, 2003

As a first time mom, I was somewhat scared about going through chilbirth. As far as talking to my mom about my fears was useless because I was adopted, and talking to my aunts just made me more scared. So I decided to purchase "The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Child Birth" by Henci Goer.Now to be honest with you, this book didn't put most of my fears to rest, instead it made some things about childbirth more scary. After thinking about most of the stuff that scared me I relized that what was so scary was the fear of the unknown.However, Goer presents a somewhat biased opinion(she even admitts it). The information that she presents is comprehensive and well supported, the appendices accounts for about a third of the reading volume of the book which includes Literature Summaries and an extensive bibliography. Goer presents information on the following topics: cesareans, inducing labor, IVs, epidurals, home births, midwives and obstetricans, hospital births,... read more

AVAILABILITY
Merchant	Format	Price
Amazon US	Paperback	$2.31 - $17.00
eBooks.com	Digital (PDF)	$13.99
BookByte	Paperback	$11.96
eCampus	Paperback	~~$16.58~~ discount!