Audiobook10 hours
Natural Hospital Birth: The Best of Both Worlds
Written by Cynthia Gabriel and Timothy R.B. Johnson, MD
Narrated by Norah Tocci
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
5/5
()
About this audiobook
Natural Hospital Birth, Updated Edition shows how to apply the guidelines and tactics of natural birth in a hospital setting, where 99% of births take place.
Many mothers-to-be find themselves torn between the desire for a natural childbirth with minimal medical intervention and the peace of mind offered by instant access to life-saving technology that only a hospital can provide. In Natural Hospital Birth, doula Cynthia Gabriel asserts that there is no good reason that women should not be able to have both.
Cynthia shows expectant mothers what they can do to avoid unnecessary medical interventions and how to take initiative and consciously prepare for the kind of birth they want to have. Also included are inspiring stories from other women who know firsthand that natural birth in the hospital is possible. With this book, mothers-to-be will be equipped with the knowledge they need to ensure a satisfying hospital birth that they will look back on with peace and joy.
Many mothers-to-be find themselves torn between the desire for a natural childbirth with minimal medical intervention and the peace of mind offered by instant access to life-saving technology that only a hospital can provide. In Natural Hospital Birth, doula Cynthia Gabriel asserts that there is no good reason that women should not be able to have both.
Cynthia shows expectant mothers what they can do to avoid unnecessary medical interventions and how to take initiative and consciously prepare for the kind of birth they want to have. Also included are inspiring stories from other women who know firsthand that natural birth in the hospital is possible. With this book, mothers-to-be will be equipped with the knowledge they need to ensure a satisfying hospital birth that they will look back on with peace and joy.
Related to Natural Hospital Birth
Related audiobooks
The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ina May's Guide to Childbirth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Mama Natural Week-by-Week Guide to Pregnancy and Childbirth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Babies Are Not Pizzas: They're Born, Not Delivered Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Summary of Ina May's Guide to Childbirth: Updated With New Material Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Motherly Guide to Becoming Mama: Redefining the Pregnancy, Birth, and Postpartum Journey Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLatch: A Handbook for Breastfeeding with Confidence at Every Stage Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5What No One Tells You: A Guide to Your Emotions from Pregnancy to Motherhood Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5What to Eat When You're Pregnant: A Week-by-Week Guide to Support Your Health and Your Baby's Development Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mayo Clinic Guide To A Healthy Pregnancy, 2nd Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Like a Mother: A Feminist Journey Through the Science and Culture of Pregnancy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sweet Sleep: Nighttime and Naptime Strategies for the Breastfeeding Family Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Is for Advice (The Reassuring Kind): Wisdom for Pregnancy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Give Birth Like a Feminist Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Impatient Woman's Guide to Getting Pregnant Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nine Golden Months: The Essential Art of Nurturing the Mother-To-Be Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Awakening Fertility: The Essential Art of Preparing for Pregnancy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Birth Space: A Doula's Guide to Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5What to Eat When You Want to Get Pregnant: A Science-Based 4-Week Nutrition Program to Boost Your Fertility Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5YOU: Having a Baby: The Owner's Manual to a Happy and Healthy Pregnancy Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Labor Day: True Birth Stories by Today's Best Women Writers Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Summary of Mayo Clinic Guide to a Healthy Pregnancy: From Doctors Who Are Parents, Too! Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Birth Reborn Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/525%: One in four women Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This Isn't What I Expected: Overcoming Postpartum Depression, 2nd Edition Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Conceivability: What I Learned Exploring the Frontiers of Fertility Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Medical For You
What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Roxane Gay & Everand Originals: My Year of Psychedelics: Lessons on Better Living Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The People's Hospital: Hope and Peril in American Medicine Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Neuroscientist Who Lost Her Mind: My Tale of Madness and Recovery Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Soul Of Shame: Retelling the Stories We Believe About Ourselves Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All That Remains: A Renowned Forensic Scientist on Death, Mortality, and Solving Crimes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Big Lie: How One Doctor’s Medical Fraud Launched Today’s Deadly Anti-Vax Movement Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Menopause Manifesto: Own Your Health With Facts and Feminism Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Psychology of the Unconscious Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Chronic Resilience: 10 Sanity-Saving Strategies for Women Coping with the Stress of Illness Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5When I Come Home Again: 'A page-turning literary gem' THE TIMES, BEST BOOKS OF 2020 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Intuitive Eating Workbook: 10 Principles for Nourishing a Healthy Relationship with Food Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Tumor: A Non-Legal Thriller Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Summary: Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor: Key Takeaways, Summary & Analysis Included Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The House of God Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gene: An Intimate History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Year of the Nurse: A 2020 Covid-19 Pandemic Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Genius Foods: Become Smarter, Happier, and More Productive While Protecting Your Brain for Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for Natural Hospital Birth
Rating: 4.7727272727272725 out of 5 stars
5/5
33 ratings6 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5O livro áudio carece dramaticamente de nomes de capítulos e de descrições curtas para facilitar a navegação.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A great read for those planning to give birth in a hospital who want a natural birth and are wondering what to expect and what obstacles they might encounter. It helps you know what to expect and presents a more balanced perspective which is helpful. I appreciate that it encourages you to stand up for yourself but at the same time doesn’t encourage you to see your care team as adversaries when really everyone has the same goal- a safe birth- just different approaches. It gives you a sense of where you might need to dig deeper, but I do feel like more books/classes/resources will be needed to supplement, for example on how to actually manage the pain during labor, since it doesn’t go into depth on techniques.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Such an amazing, real and honest book!!!! I love it. The narrator’s voice was too husky and it really annoyed me. But i made it through
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This was a very informative and enjoyable listen. My only negative was the speed at which the book was read. I found it very slow and ended up listening at 1.2x speed to make it sound more naturally paced. I would recommend this book to any expecting parent looking for information on how to birth naturally in a hospital setting.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I read this book after two medically managed births in a hospital and before my third labor and delivery (which will hopefully be natural!) and I just found myself wishing I had read this book prior to my first child because it would have been so much more useful to me then. I thought this book gave some very practical and straight-forward information, particularly for first time moms. It's hard to know exactly what kind of birth experience you'll have in a particular hospital if you have not had any babies there yourself or heard anyone else's story. However, I do believe the book gives an accurate idea of what is typical in most hospitals. I think the author gives a pretty well rounded view of what you should know going into it, but I would have loved to see her delve further into many topics that are addressed. For further reading I definitely recommend both Ina May's Guide to Childbirth and Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way, both of which gave me immensely more information overall.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Natural Hospital Birth by Cynthia Gabriel is an informative, helpful, and encouraging guide to giving birth in a hospital without unnecessary medical interventions. Gabriel is a doula, medical anthropologist, and mother of three who is passionate about helping women achieve the birth experience they want. I'm not a hippie or a person into "natural" for the sake of natural; I have simply educated myself and have come to the conclusion that natural birth, whenever possible, is the best thing for both the baby and the mother. And that is why I am pursuing it.There are so many helpful things about this book; where do I start? Gabriel studied birth in Russia and came away with many insights, one of which was simply that birth pain is not honored in Western culture. It's viewed as something terrible to be avoided at all costs, and yet it is a natural part of childbearing that deserves just as much respect as any other aspect of motherhood. I appreciated the insight into the inner workings of a hospital and the possible motivations behind the staff's insistence on certain procedures (scheduling, convenience, protocol, etc.). It was helpful to hear that you don't have to deliver your baby while lying prone on your back (that's actually not the greatest position for the woman or the baby—it's really more for the convenience of the doctor, sadly). Gabriel could easily come across as combative and belligerent toward the medical establishment, but that is not the case. On the contrary, she is very diplomatic and talks a lot about working with rather than against your doctor and nurses. I really liked how she emphasized keeping things positive in your birth plan (rather than coming in with a negative list of what you don't want, come with a positive list of what you do want and enlist the staff's support with your commitment). If and when we're pressured to have a certain procedure, the line "let's wait an hour" will also be very useful. If it's not an emergency, we have time. As Gabriel says, we probably have an hour.And not that I needed permission, but it was nice to hear someone affirm that it's okay to write a birth plan that you really want to stick to. Most people tell you to be flexible and not get hung up on things being a certain way, and I totally understand why they say this—there's so much out of our control when it comes to giving birth. No one can predict how her labor and delivery will go, and if you don't get the experience that you want, you'll be disappointed at a time when you should be most joyful. But the alternative is basically insulating yourself from the possibility of disappointment by choosing not to care. Now, for me as a Christian this is only half the story; I want to hold my hopes with an open hand, knowing that God may have a different (and ultimately better) plan for me. But to deliberately choose passivity because I might not get what I wanted otherwise—I don't know, that seems a little overprotective. Yes, there is always the risk of disappointment, but I should be able to handle it in a godly and mature way. Again, it goes back to the idea that pain is not something to avoid at all costs. Quick suggestion if you are contemplating a birth plan: try to get your doctor to sign it, even if he/she will definitely be the one handling the delivery. You'll have nurses who may have their own ideas about what labor should be like, and being able to back up your wishes with your doctor's signature should help you negotiate more strongly. Gabriel doesn't actually suggest this (perhaps most doctors are not as accommodating as mine, who signed ours with a few small changes). She does recommend getting your doctor to agree to the provisions of your birth plan verbally beforehand and then using that as leverage with the staff, but I think having a signature is more powerful. There were two things I wish had been explained better. In one of the sample birth plans, the woman had written that she wanted the staff to hold off from clamping the cord until it stopped pulsating, and the reason for this was never explained (I talked to my doctor about it). The other thing that was mentioned without a good explanation was why you might request not to be given routine Pitocin to help deliver the placenta and clamp down the uterus. After doing some research, I understand why Pitocin is given after the baby is born (it cuts down on the incidence of PPH, postpartum hemorrhage) but couldn't find a ton of support for avoiding it, other than the simple desire to be completely unmedicated in all stages of labor. But once the baby's out, and the benefits are proven as they are by a good number of studies, I don't see a hugely compelling reason to fight this battle with my hospital where it's standard procedure. At several weeks out from my due date with my first child, it's easy for me to be a proponent of natural birth. I have not yet experienced the anguish of labor, and reading a book even as assiduously as I read this can't prepare me for what that will be like. I don't mean to be disrespectful toward women who have chosen interventions such as an epidural or C-section for whatever reason (and boy, will it be humbling if I can't handle the pain and accept the epidural, like 95% of the women at the hospital where I'm delivering... yes, 95%). The prospect of labor without medication is a daunting one no matter what your convictions, and ultimately I need to entrust myself to God who does have it all under control. Despite the fact that all our tactics and plans could go out the window when our son comes, this book helped us feel more prepared. We plan to keep it on hand during the labor process.