Joyous Childbirth Changes the World


Book Description

“No matter how science has progressed, childbirth, in essence, has remained unchanged from ancient times . . . [It] is the last natural process left to us,” writes internationally lauded obstetrician Dr. Tadashi Yoshimura. “The fact that it has remained unchanged means that there is truth in it.” The truth and power of birth is the subject of Dr. Yoshimura’s first book published in the United States. Yoshimura describes babies born so directly into the arms of their mothers that they do not cry, and women so transformed with pride and passion in their ability that they are joyous and forever changed. Instead of a medical emergency, Yoshimura describes birth as a transcendent and natural process that cannot be perfected, and that, when performed through the innate power of women, reveals what he calls a “mystic beauty.” Full of delightful stories of birthing women and peaceful smiling infants, and helpful tips from his childbirth preparation program, Joyous Childbirth Changes the World is a must-read for all expectant parents and those who care for them. Yoshimura’s clinic serves as a testament to the kind of compassionate birth culture that is possible if we prioritize the health and experience of women and babies.




Birth Matters


Book Description

Renowned for her practice's exemplary results and low intervention rates, Ina May Gaskin has gained international notoriety for promoting natural birth. She is a much-beloved leader of a movement that seeks to stop the hyper-medicalization of birth—which has lead to nearly a third of hospital births in America to be cesarean sections—and renew confidence in a woman's natural ability to birth. Upbeat and informative, Gaskin asserts that the way in which women become mothers is a women's rights issue, and it is perhaps the act that most powerfully exhibits what it is to be instinctually human. Birth Matters is a spirited manifesta showing us how to trust women, value birth, and reconcile modern life with a process as old as our species.




Placenta Wit: Mothers Stories, Rituals and Research


Book Description

Placenta Wit is an interdisciplinary anthology of stories, rituals, and research that explores mothers’ contemporary and traditional uses of the human afterbirth. Authors inspire, provoke and highlight diverse understandings of the placenta and its role in mothers’ creative life-giving. Through medicalization of childbirth, many North American mothers do not have access to their babies’ placentas, nor would many think to. Placentas are often considered to be medical property, and/ or viewed as the refuse of birth. Yet there is now greater understanding of motherand baby-centred birth care, in which careful treatment of the placenta and cord can play an integral role. In reclaiming birth at home and in clinical settings, mothers are choosing to keep their placentas. There is a revival, and survival, of family and community rituals with the placenta and umbilical cord, including burying, art making, and consuming for therapeutic use. Claiming and honouring the placenta may play a vital role in understanding the sacredness of birth and the gift of life that mothers bring. Placenta Wit gathers narrative accounts, scholarly essays, creative pieces and artwork from this emergence of placental interests and uses. This collection includes understandings from birth cultures and communities such as home-birth, hospital-birth, midwifery, doula, Indigenous, and feminist perspectives. Once lost, now found, Placenta Wit authors capably handle and care for this wise organ at the roots of motherhood, and life itself.




Six Practical Lessons for an Easier Childbirth


Book Description

THE BIBLE FOR EVERY COUPLE PREPARING FOR THE BIRTH OF A BABY When it was first introduced more than thirty years ago, the Lamaze method was a revolutionary childbirth technique. Since that time, it has made pregnancy and childbirth easier for millions of women, lessening their dependence on pain medications before and after birth. Elisabeth Bing’s classic book on the Lamaze method guides women through the physical and psychological challenges of pregnancy. Six Practical Lessons for an Easier Childbirth details the changes a woman can expect in her body during pregnancy, labor, and delivery and provides a complete program of exercises for increased muscular control and relaxation during childbirth. This guidebook also emphasizes the partner’s supportive role in the Lamaze method, both in preparation and in the delivery room. This newly revised edition includes an expanded program with new photographs of exercises for every pregnant woman. Elisabeth Bing also provides more information on what to expect in the hospital, including updated information on cesarean births and the medications commonly prescribed during delivery. Filled with vital information and reassurance, Six Practical Lessons for an Easier Childbirth will make expectant couples better prepared than ever for this joyous, rewarding experience.




Natural Hospital Birth


Book Description

Offers expectant mothers seeking natural childbirth in a hospital a detailed look at pregnancy and labor, explaining how to create a mutually supportive relationship among birth-care providers and make informed choices.




Dawn of the Akashic Age


Book Description

A preview of the post-mechanistic, holistic world in 2020 and 2030 as well as a map of the obstacles we must overcome to get there • Reveals how the youngest generation is seeding the shift in consciousness • Explains how society will be reorganized into grassroots networks like those revealed by quantum physics and experienced through social media • With contributions from futurist John L. Petersen, ex-CEO of Sanyo Tomoya Nonaka, media activist Duane Elgin, and other visionaries The world is changing. The transition from the mechanistic worldview to one that recognizes the interconnectedness of all life is upon us. It is the dawning of the Akashic Age. The Akashic field that connects the universe is now recognized by cutting-edge science. What we know about communication, energy, and consciousness is rapidly evolving in tandem with the new quantum worldview. Many adults are consciously evolving to meet the transitional challenges at hand, while today’s youth have arrived already hard-wired with the new consciousness. Rising from the ashes of the old systems, this Phoenix generation of radical change agents is seeding our evolution and spiritual transformation, a process that will continue over the next few decades. Authors Ervin Laszlo and Kingsley Dennis look at the chief engine of the coming changes--the growing global understanding of nonlocality--and the development of practical applications for it. They examine how the new values and new consciousness taking hold will reorganize society from top-down hierarchies into grassroots networks like those revealed through quantum physics’ understanding of energy and information waves and experienced daily by millions through social media. With contributions from visionary thinkers such as futurist John L. Petersen, ex-CEO of Sanyo Tomoya Nonaka, media activist Duane Elgin, systems scientist Alexander Laszlo, and spiritual economist Charles Eisenstein, this book explores the future of education, spirituality, the media, economics, food, and planetary citizenship as well as the expansion of consciousness necessary to reach that future.




The Happiest Baby on the Block


Book Description

Perfect for expecting parents who want to provide a soothing home for the newest member of their family, The Happiest Baby on the Block, the national bestseller by respected pediatrician and child development expert Dr. Harvey Karp, is a revolutionary method for calming a crying infant and promoting healthy sleep from day one. In perhaps the most important parenting book of the decade, Dr. Harvey Karp reveals an extraordinary treasure sought by parents for centuries --an automatic “off-switch” for their baby’s crying. No wonder pediatricians across the country are praising him and thousands of Los Angeles parents, from working moms to superstars like Madonna and Pierce Brosnan, have turned to him to learn the secrets for making babies happy. Never again will parents have to stand by helpless and frazzled while their poor baby cries and cries. Dr. Karp has found there IS a remedy for colic. “I share with parents techniques known only to the most gifted baby soothers throughout history …and I explain exactly how they work.” In a innovative and thought-provoking reevaluation of early infancy, Dr. Karp blends modern science and ancient wisdom to prove that newborns are not fully ready for the world when they are born. Through his research and experience, he has developed four basic principles that are crucial for understanding babies as well as improving their sleep and soothing their senses: ·The Missing Fourth Trimester: as odd as it may sound, one of the main reasons babies cry is because they are born three months too soon. ·The Calming Reflex: the automatic reset switch to stop crying of any baby in the first few months of life. ·The 5 “S’s”: the simple steps (swaddling, side/stomach position, shushing, swinging and sucking) that trigger the calming reflex. For centuries, parents have tried these methods only to fail because, as with a knee reflex, the calming reflex only works when it is triggered in precisely the right way. Unlike other books that merely list these techniques Dr. Karp teaches parents exactly how to do them, to guide cranky infants to calm and easy babies to serenity in minutes…and help them sleep longer too. ·The Cuddle Cure: the perfect mix the 5 “S’s” that can soothe even the most colicky of infants. In the book, Dr. Karp also explains: What is colic? Why do most babies get much more upset in the evening? How can a parent calm a baby--in mere minutes? Can babies be spoiled? When should a parent of a crying baby call the doctor? How can a parent get their baby to sleep a few hours longer? Even the most loving moms and dads sometimes feel pushed to the breaking point by their infant’s persistent cries. Coming to the rescue, however, Dr. Karp places in the hands of parents, grandparents, and all childcare givers the tools they need to be able to calm their babies almost as easily as…turning off a light. From the Hardcover edition.




And Now We Have Everything


Book Description

A raw, funny, and fiercely honest account of becoming a mother before feeling like a grown up. When Meaghan O'Connell got accidentally pregnant in her twenties and decided to keep the baby, she realized that the book she needed -- a brutally honest, agenda-free reckoning with the emotional and existential impact of motherhood -- didn't exist. So she decided to write it herself. And Now We Have Everything is O'Connell's exploration of the cataclysmic, impossible-to-prepare-for experience of becoming a mother. With her dark humor and hair-trigger B.S. detector, O'Connell addresses the pervasive imposter syndrome that comes with unplanned pregnancy, the fantasies of a "natural" birth experience that erode maternal self-esteem, post-partum body and sex issues, and the fascinating strangeness of stepping into a new, not-yet-comfortable identity. Channeling fears and anxieties that are still taboo and often unspoken, And Now We Have Everything is an unflinchingly frank, funny, and visceral motherhood story for our times, about having a baby and staying, for better or worse, exactly yourself. Smart, funny, and true in all the best ways, this book made me ache with recognition." -- Cheryl Strayed




Bountiful, Beautiful, Blissful


Book Description

From internationally renowned yoga teacher Gurmukh comes a book on pregnancy unlike any other. Bountiful, Beautiful, Blissful is a treasury of wisdom, information, and inspiration for pregnancy and motherhood based on the spiritual and physical practices of Kundalini yoga, which Gurmukh has taught for the last thirty years. With illustrated, step-by-step instructions, she teaches time-tested techniques, meditations, and exercises that will help you physically, mentally, and spiritually. In the timeless way that women have passed down wisdom surrounding birth and child rearing to one another for centuries, Gurmukh weaves folk stories and contemporary testimonials into a program designed to help you get profound results in the shortest possible time. The sections in this book cover each trimester of pregnancy as well as delivery and life with the baby. In her wise, gentle, and comforting voice, Gurmukh suggests meditations, exercises, and yoga positions to respond to the various needs of expectant and new mothers as you undergo dramatic body changes. Gurmukh also helps you explore and, when necessary, heal your own history and unconscious attitudes about pregnancy, birth, and parenting. In Bountiful, Beautiful, Blissful, Gurmukh gives you all the tools you need to have a healthy and happy pregnancy while increasing your connection to your partner and building compassion and prosperity. The ancient practices of yoga can lead you back to your own power as a woman, capable of more than you ever dreamed. All you need is a belief in the possibility of change and a commitment of as little as three minutes a day. Gurmukh has helped thousands of women and their families find fulfillment through the healing movements and meditations of Kundalini yoga---and she can help you, too!




The Birth Of A Mother


Book Description

As you prepare to become a mother, you face an experience unlike any other in your life. Having a baby will redirect your preferences and pleasures and, most likely, will realign some of your values.As you undergo this unique psychological transformation, you will be guided by new hopes, fears, and priorities. In a most startling way, having a child will influence all of your closest relationships and redefine your role in your family's history. The charting of this remarkable, new realm is the subject of this compelling book.Renowned psychiatrist Daniel N. Stern has joined forces with pediatrician and child psychiatrist Nadia Bruschweiler-Stern and journalist Alison Freeland to paint a wonderfully evocative picture of the psychology of motherhood. At the heart of The Birth of a Mother is an arresting premise: Just as a baby develops physically in utero and after birth, so a mother is born psychologically in the many months that precede and follow the birth of her baby.The recognition of this inner transformation emerges from hundreds of interviews with new mothers and decades of clinical experience. Filled with revealing case studies and personal comments from women who have shared this experience, this book will serve as an invaluable sourcebook for new mothers, validating the often confusing emotions that accompany the development of this new identity. In addition to providing insight into the unique state of motherhood, the authors touch on related topics such as going back to work, fatherhood, adoption, and premature birth.During pregnancy, mothers-to-be talk about morning sickness and their changing bodies, and new mothers talk about their exhaustion, the benefits of nursing or bottle-feeding, and the dilemma of whether or when they should return to work. And yet, they can be strangely mute about the dramatic and often overwhelming changes going on in their inner lives. Finally, with The Birth of a Mother, these powerful feelings are eloquently put into words.