Please recommend a good book for me here - am absolutely terrified.

[WriggleJiggle]

Only 13 weeks pg with baby no.2, so a whopping 27 weeks left to go, but after a pretty rough time with dd's birth I'm absolutely terrified and dreading it already.

Please can you recommend your best 'birthing' books to help me put it all in perspective and relax a little.

Stand and Deliver and Other Great Ways to Give Birth by Emma Mahony (available on Amazon). Lots of positive birth stories and helps get you in a relaxed, informed, positive state of mind. The others mentioned here are also good...

No book recommendations, but it is easier for most people second time round. I had dreadful birth with ds1 and ds2 seemed to fly out.

Just keep pushing and pushing as hard as you can until they tell you to stop!!!

I'd also suggest Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering by Dr Darah Buckley. the best thing being that even if you don't get her book to read, the articles on her website are also in the book so you can get an idea of what makes her tick. Just the way she helps you understand how your hormones work in labour made such a difference to me and restored my faith in my body's ability to birth. I shall be thinking of her, as well as Ina May and Sheila Kitzinger and Pan England (BFW) when I labour again.

See also "Pelvises I have known and loved" by Gloria Lemay for restoring faith in your body.

Michel Odent's Birth and Breastfeeding, absolutely fab book

Blooming Birth by Lucy Atkins and Julia Guderian, it helped me with ds when I was terrified and then helped a friend when she had had a hard time first time round and was considering it again but was scared of going through it once more...