Birth Pregnancy

Whether you are planning for a baby, just found out you are pregnant or well into your third trimester, this audiobook will help you to feel confident, informed and inspired about your exciting journey ahead. Through years of work with families, senior midwife Marie Louise reveals the key things that will make the biggest, most positive difference to you and your baby as you navigate these life-changing months.

During pregnancy, childbirth, and early motherhood, women undergo a far-reaching physiological, psychological and social metamorphosis. In this ground-breaking, deeply personal investigation, acclaimed journalist and author Lucy Jones brings to light the emerging concept of 'matrescence'. Drawing on new research across various fields - neuroscience and evolutionary biology; psychoanalysis and existential therapy; sociology, economics and ecology - Jones shows how the changes in the maternal mind, brain and body are far more profound, wild and enduring than we have been led to believe.

From the moment Martha and her husband, John, conceived their second child, all hell broke loose. They were a couple obsessed with success. After years of matching IQs and test scores with less driven peers, they had two Harvard degrees apiece and were gunning for more. But the dream had begun to disintegrate. Then, when their unborn son, Adam, was diagnosed with Down syndrome, doctors, advisers, and friends in the Harvard community warned them not to keep the baby.

In the last 30 years, the process of starting a family has drastically changed. There many more options for getting pregnant and dizzying array of variables from start to finish. Genetic test or no genetic test? Midwife or OB-GYN? All this choice can create anxiety, especially around the most difficult realities. Miscarriages and fertility issues are common, yet often concealed. One in nine mothers report dealing with postpartum depression, but it is rarely acknowledged and even more rarely treated. Enter Leslie Schrock, first-time mother whose own struggles opened her eyes.

Whether offering insight into the rise in home births, the alarming rise in America’s maternal mortality rate, or the history of involuntary sterilization, Karkowsky offers a window into all that pregnancy, labor, and birth can entail - birth and joy, but also challenge and loss - illustrating the complexity of reproductive life and the systems that surround it. With historical insight and journalistic verve, Karkowsky unpacks what is involved for women, for a family, and for us as a society; and explores what’s at risk when these aspects of medicine remain clouded in mystery and misinformation.

From evolution to the epidural and beyond, Tina Cassidy presents an intelligent, enlightening, and impeccably researched cultural history of how and why we're born the way we are. Women have been giving birth for millennia, but that's about the only constant in the final stage of the great process that is human reproduction. Why is it that every culture and generation seems to have its own ideas about the best way to give birth?

'I wish someone had told me!' It's a phrase uttered by countless women after they give birth for the first time. Here's the audiobook that shares the wisdom of women and their birth stories, so that you can make informed and empowered decisions that are best for you. The Complete Australian Guide to Pregnancy and Birth draws on the expertise of dozens of doctors, midwives and other health specialists to offer the most comprehensive and up-to-date information about pregnancy, labour, birth and early postpartum in Australia.

After reading this book, you will not just hope for a healthy birth—you will help make it happen. Every parent dreams of holding a happy, healthy baby in their arms. This book turns that dream into a plan. You are not just along for the ride—you are one of the most important people in the delivery room. With the right knowledge, you can make smart, confident decisions that protect both you and your baby. This book shows you how. Written by a top childbirth attorney with decades of experience, this guide offers a rare and powerful combination of medical insight and legal wisdom. You will...

Battling Over Birth: Black Women and the Maternal Health Care Crisis reveals hard truths—powerful findings on the role of racism, coercion, inadequate prenatal care, the pressures undermining breastfeeding, and the lack of access to alternatives to a broken maternal health-care system as key threads of black women's birth experiences.

Doctors recommend it and pregnant couples rely on it—and you and your partner will find it indispensable! For over thirty years, Dr. Glade B. Curtis and Judith Schuler have helped millions of parents-to-be navigate and prepare for the most exciting and challenging time of their lives—and now they’ll help you. With Your Pregnancy’s signature week-by-week format, you’ll easily and comfortably follow your baby’s development as it grows during these exciting forty weeks.

What if you could experience a calm, peaceful, and glorious pregnancy and childbirth as God intended it from the absolute beginning? We have prepared more than 300 affirmations, declarations, and words to meditate on and to catapult you into that new way of life. There is a chapter for every trimester of your pregnancy and the last chapter for preparation of the day your child is born. Listen to these declarations throughout your whole pregnancy, and most importantly, repeat them on a daily basis.

In this beautiful book, trained and experienced doula Gabrielle Nancarrow offers comprehensive information about the birthing landscape that will empower you to choose the right birth for you—whether that be an obstetric, midwife, or home birth. The Birth Space shows us how to prepare our minds and bodies for pregnancy and labor, from conscious conception through to postpartum and into matrescence.

Many new dads, especially if this is their first child, have no idea what to expect during labor and delivery. Squeezing a baby through a tiny opening is not a fun and pleasurable experience. It is something that the fathers do not have the opportunity to know what it feels like. In all honesty, labor has nothing to do with the father. Sure you will welcome your new born baby into the world once she or he comes out but until that point it’s not you suffering. This book gives expecting fathers information on what to expect and also what to do and what not to do.

Are you hoping for a joyful and stress-free pregnancy and birth? Would you like to feel calm, confident and full of gratitude, rather than fearful, stressed, and full of doubt? Positive affirmations are known to harness positive thinking and quiet an anxious mind.

Teresa Palmer and Sarah Wright Olsen, two moms from opposite sides of the world, are doing their best to raise happy, empathetic children while working, traveling, and maintaining their sanity. With seven kids between them, the founders of the much-loved Your Zen Mama blog know as well as anyone that motherhood doesn’t exist in the highlight reel of life, and that finding even a fleeting semblance of calm among the epic ebbs and flows of parenting is usually all you can hope for.

Discover tried-and-tested techniques to help you relax during labour, including mindfulness, breathing exercises and visualization, so that you can have an empowering, positive birth.

For a Safe and Healthy Birth… Your Way! Giving Birth with Confidence will help take the mystery out of having a baby and help you better understand how your body works during pregnancy and childbirth, giving you the confidence to make decisions that best ensure the safety and health of you and your baby.

Funny, fast-paced, and full of solid and practical ideas and advice, Welcome to Fatherhood dives right into the challenges that many modern dads-to-be face as they try to partner up with their pregnant significant others. Not just another take on the “be helpful and supportive” mantra most books preach, this book gets right to the point and gives dozens of specific and detailed tips, tricks, tools, and techniques to help you meet and exceed all of today’s expectations.

"So birthday girl." I said breaking the silence, "Is there anything you want to add to your birthday wish list for today?" It's Clara's last birthday before she heads off to college and she can't wait until she opens her gifts. However there's only one gift she really wants, but it's strictly forbidden and only the man of the house can give it to her. She's secretly crushed on him for years and always wanted her first time to be with him. What Clara doesn't know is that the man of the house knows about her naughty secret and has a secret fantasy of his own. Now he's going to make sure his ...

In this groundbreaking pregnancy book, Carson Meyer draws on her experience as a birth doula helping hundreds of families welcome their babies into the world. With a holistic focus on wellness, health, and spirituality, Growing Together offers birthing parents an empowering approach to pregnancy and childbirth that is too often missing in today's standard care.