Has anyone read Spiritual Midwifery by Ina May Gaskin?

[nuttygirl]

Is it very technical (i.e. only for midwives/doulas, etc.)?

I've read Ina May's guide to childbirth and loved it but the library doesn't have Spiritual Midwifery and I'm wondering if it's worth buying or if I'll just be totally confused by it?

Yes i've read it, no not very technical, lots of birth stories and some midwifery advice but nothing too heavy, I think you should get it.

Not technical at all - absolutely brilliant!

Lots of lovely POSITIVE birth stories, I'm pregnant for the second time and it's completely altered my view on childbirth (in a good way!)

It IS a great book, but if you're more the "sensible" type rather than the "hippy" type (and yes that is a generalisation but I stand by it!) you might find it all a bit too far out. A lot of it just irritated me whereas The Guide to Childbirth was brilliant. It wouldn't confuse you but I'd say save your money and see if you can borrow a copy. Unless of course you're a hippy, in which case, you'll ADORE it.

I was a 'sensible' type till I had a baby...now I'm a hippy

Might buy it, think it was only about £12 delivered.

Thanks everyone!

God - I love that book, but you have to read it as a historical text IMO. If you take it at face value you're going to be 'tripped out' by the pictures of women with long, straggly hair in centre partings, the talk of 'yonis' and 'psychedelic surges' (aka contractions).

If you can 'get with' the language and the style, you will enjoy it as it is full of interesting, moving stories about birth. It's the only book I've read on childbirth which really explores women's feelings about their experience of labour in a respectful and detailed manner.

LOL I found the guide to childbirth too far out for me. Got up to a part where a woman who had just given birth got into bed with a woman who was contracting and stripped down to her sanitary towel and had sympathy contractions before I realised it wasn't really my thing.

Its fine,read it pre homebirth

Far toomuch Lulu style lovin for my likin but heck

good book

I'mpretty sensible but you know,can make allowances for time place and psychedelic love wagons

I read it in preparation for my failed homebirth. Twas psychedelic. I love it.

PMSL at snowlight

got engrossed in this when i should have been reading 'real' textbooks before my interview to do my midwifery converson. did the trick because i start in 2 weeks.
in fact at my interview they asked what i saw myself doing when qualified and i told them i was going to move to tennassee and be a hippy on the farm
it is fab. v hippy. v positive and touchy feely. not too technical.

lizzytee I'm not very touchy-feely I'm afraid.

My 7 page birth plan for no.2 was littered with instructions to the mw to never ever touch me. Consequently I ripped at the crucial moment but that was my preference and I still stand by it.

i don't remember that in Guide to Childbirth SL.

you sure you're not on a psychadelic trip tonigt?

Lulu style lovin'?? nowt wrong with that

if you put aside the psychedlicness it is a brilliant inspiring book that reminds you that the birth process does not revolve around midwives/doctors telling you what to do and doing stuff to you

the best thing about the book is that i took away from it that with the right support, no matter how intense, or difficult or scary the birth and post birth is, you can get through it and not be scarred by it.

Ah well I have had a few glasses of wine on top of my cronic sleep deprivation so perhaps......but surely it is unlikely that I'd get something like that wrong.

TBH, although I like to be knowledgable, for me in my late pregnant state there was just too much detail in the book. The birth stories may well be positive, but they still gave me the heebie-jeebies. At the time I felt I could well live without the estatic births that were described.

In some ways it is good to be a first timer I think, at least until the birth, and then it probably works against you.

Right, - I definately think I've had too much wine. Where am I? Is this AIBU?

Okay, this has been bothering me so I looked it up.

It's in the Introduction to birth stories section:

'A Story of Sisterhood - February 13, 1972 by Mary Shelton'

Its a beautiful book, and still relevant today

I quote (if I may):

'I took off my clothes (except for my pad as I was still bleeding from Jon's birth) and crawled up on the bed with her. I laid next to her - head to head, breast to breast, womb to womb'

'We held each other and rushed and soared together. My womb, though empty was swelling and contracting too.'

Sorry, it's a lovely story but I have difficulty identifying with it as this wouldn't have helped me at all, but rather had me running for the hills.

that is not typical of the birth stories.. but i think the point is about teh connection and real feeling of sisterhood and being 'in it together' that women have in birth

women;s menstrual cycles do synchronise when they live together for any length of time, so why would they not experience sympathetic childbirth pains?

it is super hippified, but the point is still relevant i think

I love the references to 'tripping off the rushes' meaning the woman's contractions. I'm a bit mad I know, but I just love the idea of turning the whole experience on it's head and enjoying it! I also love the story of a woman who was told by her midwives that she was getting a 'little complainy'! Plain talking Ina May... Surprisingly conventional though as Ina prefers to have the woman deliver in a semi-recumbent position if you notice.

I think that's the point I feel a bit uncomfortable with Lulu. The sisterhood bit.

Perhaps it's the culture that I have grown up and my upbringing (loads of brothers) must certainly play a part, but the less women the better, and the more logic the better too, for me.

Knowing the biology and having my doula remind me was much more helpful and relevant than colours or flowers opening (although to be fair some of the birth stories do use biological visualisations), and no woman inc midwife was allowed to touch me, just my DH.

Still, I do agree it's a fab book to have in my collection and I can see much more clearly how it is possible to have the births described after having no.2.

I don't have Guide to Childbirth with me at the moment so can't check it out SL. I do know a couple of the people from the Farm and they are down to earth practical minded people. So I supposed coming across a paragraph like that didn't phase me because I must have viewed it in the context of the time and place and person who wrote it and like Lulu said, saw the value of the subtext.

I am a tomboy by nature, deffo not a girly girl even today and they sisterhood thing for me is hard to enjoy - though as a mother and on the little trip I am currently on, I am learning more and more about enjoying the company of women.

As an aside, one of the first things my (tomboy) South African college flatmate asked me just after moving in with me was 'are your periods regular?' I was a bit shocked but she quickly added that she hoped so as she had a previous flatmate who had a regular cycle and it regulated hers which was always off kilter. So yeah, there is something to the sisterhood malarky.

I didn't want anyone even dh touching me with dd2's birth. Even without the trauma of dd1's I think it would have been the same way.

I preferred the guide to childbirth tbh but also liked this book - I quite like the hippy vibe!! I noticed that too reikizen re the position which made me but I think ALL MWs seem to prefer this position and even although me and dp had prepared for anything other than this position, the mw got me in the semi recumbant position and that's where I stayed - wonder why it took 2.5 hours to push ds out!! grrr