Ina May's Guide To Childbirth - Have you read it?

[LibraPoppyGirl]

Hello Everyone

I am 27wks+4days pg and was recommended this book by a fellow MNetter

This is my second baby, although the first was now over 13 years ago and this time I am 40!

I was thrilled, when today, this book arrived at the local library for me. I've been really looking forward to starting it and I think it's come at just the right time for me.

So, have any you read it and if yes, what did you think of it?

Thanks

Yes, and it's great. You have to go with it - nobody is seriously suggesting that you might like to snog your way through labour! She says a lot that is so sensible and empowering. It's written for America and that gives it a more political feel in places than you might expect - the idea of birth in a hospital is very different to here and drs have a lot more of a hold over women than they do here.

I'm currently trawling through it after a lovely friend insisted I must read it. It's fantastic so far, a mum-to-be must have I think!

loved it. I read it when I was pg with my second, after a really rubbish labour with my first. I found it really empowering, and went on to have a fabulous active birth with ds. Spiritual Midwifery is worth a read as well. They are dated, but the principles are the same, and I think the more positive birth stories you read, the better :)

She prints the data for the Farm's birthing centre at the end of the book - yes the kind of people who want to try for this sort of birth are a self-selecting group and that skews the figures - but they are amazingly positive outcomes by and large.

One problem to be prepared for is that you might have a strong idea of this great birth and the NHS might not have quite the same idea! But you can arm yourself with some good techniques to use during labour from the book. About a million times better than reading What to Expect When You're Expecting

I loved it. Gave me the confidence to try and give birth at home, in water.

Ended up in hospital having an emcs but still enjoyed the book.

Yes and I really rate it, some tips I would struggle to take on, but on the whole it's made me feel much more positive and confident about giving birth. This is my first, I'm 26 weeks and there have been lots of horror stories from friends which freaked me out about the whole idea of giving birth. I lie in the bath reading the book and feel the baby moving about in my belly, helped me bond with the bump and just calm down about the whole thing.

Reading her book on breastfeeding now.

Am most of the way through it - pg with DC3 - and I love it.

So much of what she says seems almost obvious after you've read it IYKWIM?

Lvoe the book - and Spiritual Midwifery which i read first...

If you took only one tip out of it I would recommend the Lips Theory stuff. Where when you're having contractions you blow a raspberry... her theory is loose lips = loose 'lips'...

Worked for me as far as i'm concerned (delivered 10lb 6oz first baby naturally with gas and air in 7 hours....)

LOVE this book, will be dusting it off now that I am preggas with DC2. I read it when I was trying to decide what kind of birth to have with DC1 and it made me do a complete U turn from ScardyCatIWantaCesarian to BringOnNaturalBirthWithNoPainKillers. I had a 9 pound baby with a tens machine for pain relief and it was a fantastic experience! I also hired a doula too after reading about them in this book - she gave me a lot of courage where I might have faltered otherwise.

Brilliant brilliant book - My fav bits are the explanation about sphincter muscles and how being in your own relaxed environment for as long as possible will help you open up quicker and have an easier birth - (it was definitely true in my case.) and the positive birth stories at the beginning of the book designed to cancel out all the negative ones we learned from watching people give birth on Eastenders. (which before this book basically summed up what I knew about childbirth)

Fab Fab book.

(Background in medical science) - the stuff about being relaxed, whatever that means for you, to encourage an easier and faster childbirth makes absolute sense.

I also liked the fact that the book sought to give a confident, happy viewpoint of childbirth. This is definitely something that I enjoyed. It seems that in the UK as much as the US childbirth is overly dramatised on TV. Also in real life, people enjoy scaring pg women with stories of their or their friend's or neightbour's nightmare birth experience.

There were sections that I was a bit less happy with. In general this is due to the polarised US view that the only way to have any control of childbirth is to avoid all Doctors and hospitals. Also, the section on pain relief and other medicines was biased.

If you compare Ina May's view of the medical profession with e.g. Prof Lesley Regan's book on pregnancy (called "your pg week by week", or something along those lines) you'll see that Prof Regan (head of obstetrics and gynaecology for a London hospital) presents a balanced view of home births, various childbirth philosophies and why different choices suit different individuals and different situations. While Ina May's book is good in many ways, I feel that without looking elsewhere, people in the UK who read Ina May could have an unfairly pessimistic view of what to expect in a hospital birth. As an example, it seems that in the US pg women can request an induction or CS on a certain date and be reasonably confident of getting this, something that would not occur here without medical reasons to back it up. And a UK consultant would not schedule an induction to keep their weekend free as this just simply isn't how UK maternity services are arranged.

The hospital (a consultant-led and MLU) that I'm booked to give birth at has birthing pools, dimmable lights in labour rooms and encourages active birth. It has taken ideas from many childbirth philosophies and seems amenable to accomodate the patients wishes as much as is realistically possible. Of course much depends on the midwife assigned to you on the day but that's life...

I read it with my first pg and looking back at it in the weeks after the birth, I couldn't help but smile wryly and wonder if it was, after all, a work of pure fiction.

I'm not saying the anecdotes in it are made up, I'm sure it's all true but those women were very lucky that the totally natural birth they wanted went their way. A lot of people want it and don't get it and I think it's also good to read more mainstream books too. Childbirth is not just about deep breathing, snogging your DH and respecting your sphincter.

She does somewhat vilify hospitals and I wouldn't want anyone to read it and then be disappointed if that's where they ended up, with good reason, you know...to save their baby's life.

I absolutely loved it.

Fat lot of good it did me being induced at 42+14, syntocinon certainly does not create 'waves'!

mummyabroad "My fav bits are the explanation about sphincter muscles and how being in your own relaxed environment for as long as possible will help you open up quicker and have an easier birth."

I spent 20 hours at home in my own environment, breathing, meditating, rocking etc etc and was still only 4cm dilated with unproductive contractions by the time we eventually gave in and went to hospital. Bloody agony, totally upsetting, could take no more of it, was ready to die... I really did give my sphincter every chance to perform as Ina said it would. But it didn't want to...

I think the whole hospital thing doesn't work for us in the UK, in the USA it's not as cynical as it sounds to us and is probably the best way to get the birth you want. Here we can work with our doctors and know they're not just going to push us down the fastest/ most convenient/ most expensive treatment. Midwives are the first point of call during a birth, they're trusted and doctors are there for when there's a problem.

I am reading it now. I am not a big fan of her writing style and think, although the book contains some very good ideas, all of these could have been conveyed in 80 rather than 380 pages... If you are house-wifey/liberal arts type, then go for it. If you like me, legal/finance mind type, you'd go crazy from all the melodrama... I think it is probably worth skimming though it. I read a hypnobirthing book by Marie Mognan and found that a lot more concise and to the point.

ThisFeelsWeird, I ended up transferring in after hours and hours of pushing (and a 2 day labour before that). I did everything 'right'. At home, in water, moving around, upright, relaxing etc. I had every intervention going and an emcs in the end. DD was unbirthable.

It took me a long time to accept I hadn't failed.

I still love the book but you do also need to read around because the element of luck means that some women will need medical intervention to save the lives of them and their babies. DD would not be here if I hadn't transferred. But I did not fail. DD hadn't read the book, unfortunately and thought she could come out ear first and transverse.

I read it quite early on in pregnancy and liked all the empowering "your body can do this easily" stuff. It has been hilarious for scaring the beejesus out of non maternal types though. My sister went pale looking at some of the more graphic photos, and I snorted heartily when my m-in-l said "what's this then?" and read aloud to the assembled group a sentence about respecting the spinchter and how much less likely you are to tear if you are touching yourself intimately! Priceless. Love all the relaxing visualisation stuff though, am 33 weeks now and listening to natal hypnotherapy cd so it all fits together nicely.

This is amazing. Thank you so much for all the responses.

You all have some really interesting and in some places, quite funny, things to say.

I'm starting it this afternoon while I laze about rest up

Keep it coming please and I'll add bits too, as I read the book.

Poppy

I don't think she ever says there is no place for interventions or sections though just that there are too many which is true. I think it's unfair on her to say that it doesn't work when she never says it does for 100% of mothers.

confuddled, of course she doesn't say there's no place for interventions. She's an astute woman and she's right about unnecessary intervention. But I did need to read around for more specifics about necessary intervention.

I would never read it in isolation I suppose.

I agree about not reading it in isolation. It's a very empowering book but you need keep in mind that things will not always work out like she says. You may not have midwives who are prepared to be as hands off and relaxed/relaxing, you may have serious complications, it may quite simply not be your style.

I think it gives you a good shot at achieving a natural birth if that's what you want and can be a useful counterweight to a very medicalised perspective but it's not gospel.

Reading it now.

The thing is when you look at those stats they do cover births that in a hospital environment would most likely result in some kind of medical intervention. And a couple of mums did end up needing medical intervention, depite the care.

SoH - you are definitely not failure. If anything those stats do show that some women need medical intervention for a safe outcome.

I found it really interesting about how birthing on your back is a fairly recent (in the last couple hundred years) phenonmenon.

Most mums in the states will end up needing interventions, most mums can't imagine not needing them (unless they've clued up for themselves) or being attended by a midwife (where in some places they're still considered to be witches and illegal).

As a Brit reading this book then yes we need to know more about necessary interventions but for an American reading it they need to be able to see that interventions aren't normal and there is another way.

She doesn't just take on people who would be suitable for this type of birth, some people have previously had a lot of intervention or CS and that's why they've gone to The Farm. If they had been in hospital they would have been contributing to the intervention stats.

The fact that some of the mothers needed interventions at the Farm simply reflects the fact that some mothers require interventions! Nobody nowhere says that all intervention is unnecessary; quite the contrary, we are lucky to have it and that is reflected in improved figures for maternal death, perinatal death, and maternal morbidity over time. (Though of course the notion of 'improved' is not clear-cut; the US has relatively poor figures compared to some countries.)

However it's clear that it is possible to run a birthing centre which has far, far lower rates of intervention than is usual either in the US or the UK, and it's an interesting question how and why. Not a simple answer.

yes, I read it, loved it and found it useful right up to the point they gave me the spinal block.