The Natural Science of Childbirth: The crucial connection between mind and body in birth

Description

Leading childbirth activist and campaigner Margaret Jowitt's new book explores the biological science of pregnancy and childbirth - as opposed to the clinical science of medicalised childbirth.The book addresses many aspects of the birth experience, from the specifically human difficulties giving birth that arise from our bodies being made for upright walking, to the effects on our psychology of the hormones of stress, pregnancy and childbirth. The book considers both the physical and psychological effects of birth, and the biomechanics that can be employed to make birth easier. The concluding chapters offer a model for creating the optimum physical and psychosocial environment for birth. Authoritatively written, thoroughly researched and illustrated in detail, this is crucial reading for student midwives, NCT teachers, childbirth educators and women preparing for childbirth.

Ever since the birth of her third child in 1991, Margaret Jowitt has been working towards making birth a safer and more rewarding experience for mothers and their babies. After a first degree in music and psychology, she gained an MPhil from Keele in 1998, researching into Mothers' Experience of Birth at Home and in Hospital. Her first book, Childbirth Unmasked, published in 1993, looked at the anatomy and physiology of birth, showing how stress hormones conflict with birth hormones. Since 1996 she has edited Midwifery Matters, the magazine of the Association of Radical Midwives. She considers that prevention is better than cure and believes that good midwifery care based on the needs of the individual woman is the key to safer childbirth.