You know a natural birth will give you and your baby a healthy start to your new lives together. But you may be afraid. You might wonder if your body is capable, or if you can prepare yourself to work with the intensity of labour.
The answer is yes. What you need is the right kind of support, the right preparation and the right environment.
Many women hope for a natural birth, but hoping is not enough. You need to make good decisions, and you need to know what to expect. Not just from your own body and the process of labour itself, but from our current birth system. You will need to get real about how the people and environment around you can affect the course of your labour.
In my workshops and my books Birth with Confidence and Beyond the Birth Plan, I educate those approaching labour on our birth statistics and hospital practices, and explain how their individual attitudes, conditioning and relationships are likely to affect their labour, bringing it all together to guide those all-important choices.
It can be confronting to learn that our hospital system is not set up to help you achieve the birth you want. But understanding this will allow you to make savvy choices about your place of birth, support people and birth preparation—choices that will give you a far better chance of natural birth.
About Birth with Confidence
Australia’s birth intervention rates are well above those recommended by the World Health Organisation and climbing. In Birth with Confidence, I explain why normal physiological childbirth is almost impossible in our current birth culture—and what you can do to beat the odds.
In this accessible, straightforward book, I draws on over forty years’ experience to show how your choice of caregivers, support team and birthplace, as well as your life experience and personal attitudes to pain, can affect your birth. Featuring real-life stories, the latest Australian statistics and opportunities for guided personal reflection, Birth with Confidence provides the knowledge and practical advice you need for the best chance of normal physiological childbirth in today’s birth culture.
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About Beyond the Birth Plan
Research tells us many postnatal challenges stem from our pre-baby life: our emotional history, childhood and even babyhood. Prenatal preparation that recognises this is crucial in protecting new mothers from postnatal depression. It is also the kind of preparation I have offered for years to women wanting the best chance of intervention-free birth in our current system.
In Beyond the Birth Plan I outlines this emotional preparation, drawing on brain science, psychology, midwifery research, and the personal stories of many women I have supported to birth the way they want.
Whatever your intentions for labour and whatever its ultimate pathway, your real plan for your birth—and beyond—starts here.