Birth as a Healing Experience: The Emotional Journey of Pregnancy Through Postpartum

This book made remember the stark contrast between my "medical intervention" birth and the healing I felt giving birth naturally. The first one made me feel raped, the second made me feel like I'd run a marathon, and won. I recommend this book to everyone who is pregnant or supporting someone who is pregnant.

Lois Freedman's book talks about a subject that is often missing from the masses of books on pregnancy out there: the emotional aspects of this most important time in a woman's life. For so many woman, being pregnant brings up fear and pain and yet this is never fully discussed with her health care providers or even her closest friends. For me, the section on mother-loss was especially important because I had lost my mother in my teens. I found the time of pregnancy and new mothering difficult even though I had great support from my husband, relatives and friends. Lois' book truly helped me to understand what I was going through and gave me suggestions for coping with my feelings and improving my experience. Additionally, in a society in which women are supposed to feel exclusively excited and thrilled about pregnancy whether the birth goes as planned or is a nightmare- as long as the baby is okay- it is refreshing to read a book that proposes that we honor birth as a healing experience for the mother. Lois gives concrete suggestions and guidelines to help women have an emotionally fulfilling birth experience- I would suggest that health professionals utilize this section with all their pregnant clients.

The author has provided expectant women with a window into their own thoughts as well as suggestions for how to help them enjoy their birth experience and weave it into their emotions as a positive experience. By allowing such a momentous occasion such as birth to awaken our inner thoughts, dreams and intense emotions about our past (and sometimes our relationships with our own mothers!), we are taken to a level where we can be renewed, in a sense. This book is straight-forward and uses examples to inspire. Many women go into late pregnancy with fear...this book helps them wade through that fear to the cause and helps them experience birth as an empowering (and sometimes forgiving) experience.