The Birth Book: Everything You Need to Know to Have a Safe and Satisfying Birth (Sears Parenting...

The Birth Book: Everything You Need to Know to Have a Safe and Satisfying Birth (Sears Parenting Library) | William Sears, Martha Sears | Good info with strong opinions

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The Birth Book: Ev...

	The Birth Book: Everything You Need to Know to Have a Safe and Satisfying Birth (Sears Parenting Library) William Sears, Martha Sears Little, Brown and Company, 1994 - 280 pages average customer review:based on 131 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

WHAT safe alternatives to Natural Child birth?

After reading this book and also many of the comments left by others complaining about being biased, I had to write something. There is no such thing as a safe alternative to Natural Childbirth. It just does not exist. Pitocin unnaturally speeds up labor making it more painful... Drugs that are taken during labor DO reach your baby, it still hurts really badly, and you will have much more pain afterwards trying to recover and take care of your baby at the same time... Drugs slow down your labor to a stand still making Doctors pressure you with a C-Section. If your ideal birth experience is a long drawn out painful C-Section, then by all means look for an alternative to a Natural Childbirth. Hey if Britney Spears did it, it must be a good idea, right?

Yes, the medical institution is a life-saving gift for all mothers and babies in the presence of abnormality and complications, but should not be pressuring the normal healthy mother to induce way too early or take medication, which they constantly do. Caesarian surgery was never meant to become "elective" and we should not be taking our babies too early before they are fully developed.

The Sears books are amazing because they explain how the products of our society have created a ton of intervention which IS causing harm to our babies. Dr. Sears IS the institution of Good Parenting which starts way before your baby comes into this world. Trust him and his advice.

This book IS biased, and it should be... you cannot write a book about labor and birth and not expect to talk about what the FDA and the AMA have been saying all along... Interventions are BAD for Mother and BAD for baby in the presence of normality. Read this book and a ton of others, because if you are not fully informed and ask tons of questions, then you will not know "what to expect when you are expecting"... a terrible book by the way :)

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Good info with strong opinions

I really appreciated the information in this book about how to cope with labor. I bought this book because we began taking Lamaze, and I realized how little the teacher was actually doing to prepare us for labor (as opposed to reviewing vocabulary words like 'uterus' and 'dialation' for goodness sake!). As a psychologist, I've taught patients pain management and relaxation techniques, so just learning deep breathing dosen't satisfy me. I wanted to learn specifically about how to manage labor. After all, there's no guarentee you will be able to have as much pain relief as you would want, when you want it! The Sears book does a great job giving you tools and positive expectations. Another plus is how explicitly they value fathers, who are too often portrayed in birth/parenting books as ignorant, selfish, or immature.

Yes, the authors are opinionated, and their writing is clearly expressive of their point of view about choices parents and physicians make. They tend to idealize midwives, and unfortunately discuss c-sections in terms of someone being at fault when they occur. While I would have preferred less explicit value judgements in their discussions, I was pleased to note they used mainstream research findings to support their arguments. I would highly recommend this book as an excellent resource for expectant parents.

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Just what you need to know

In a world full of books that tell you what the doctors want you to know, here is a book that tells you what you need to know. The Sears' advocate the woman's right to make her own decisions concerning childbirth and this book prepares them to do so. I picked this book up almost randomly, but I'm so glad I did. Yes, their bias is towards natural childbirth, but so few books give you the necessary information to go about it and so few OB's are prepared to give the whole birthing process over to the parents to manage themselves. The best attribute of this book was to show how a woman can have it all: A satisfying, natural childbirth IN a hospital. That's right. You can have the doctors and all of the medical technology close by if you need it, but still have the wonderful experience of just giving birth in an uncomplicated manner... and this book will tell you how to do it. They treat the medical profession with respect while giving the parents-to-be a look at all of the non-medical options.

Really, this is a great book. It was the only one of many books that my husband also read and it gave him all the information that he needed to be a supportive and knowledgeable partner in the birthing room. We didn't *gasp* take any classes... but this book gave us all the info we needed anyway.

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Great birth book

This, and all the other books in the Sears library, has been very helpful in preparing me for motherhood. Unlike some of the other reviewers, I am not striving for a "natural" delivery. This book is not just for those women who choose to labor without the assistance of pain medication. It gives you great exercises to make you feel great during pregnancy and prepare your body for birth. Medication or no, you will still have to do the work and you will still feel pain. It discusses nutrition, parental bonding, what to do after the birth, and more. You want relaxation techniques even if you want an epidural. This book covers it all. I think it's the best book available on the subject, and I've gotten a bunch out of the library. This was the only book good enough to buy.

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The First Must Have for All Expectant Parents

I'll keep it simple, if you are pregnant now or are planning to become pregnant, this is one of the first books you should read. It provides a wealth of important information for both pregnancy and the ultimate labor and delivery of your child(ren). It is extremely user friendly and easy to read, as are all of the Sears' books. It is written from the perspective of an experienced friend, someone who's been there done that with eight children of their own, rather than from some proverbial expert in an ivory tower. But at the same time, it is professional knowlege and expertise you can trust. In fact all of the books in the Sears Parenting Library series are must haves for all parents. In particular, The Baby Book is THE one-stop reference for all parenting issues and worries in the first two years.

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