Barbara Harper outlines the elements of gentle birthing: support from loved ones, a reassuring and quiet environment with soft lighting, and minimal medical intervention. She shows you how to plan a meaningful, family-centered birth experience and discusses the many alternatives available, providing a new model of maternity care that reduces the need for high-tech crisis intervention and focuses instead on preparation and good health for mother and child.
With Cesarean section rates in some hospitals at more than 50%, women are acknowledging that childbirth reform is an essential aspect of reclaiming responsibility for our bodies and our lives.
Includes information on:
• Giving birth in a freestanding birthing center, at home, or in a hospital birthing room.
• Finding a primary care-giver who shares your philosophy of birth, whether midwife, doctor, or both.
• Deciding how to best use current technologies.
• Practical advice for couples wishing to explore the option of waterbirth, a choice that maximizes the attributes of water as a natural, pain-relieving relaxant and an alternative to drugs and their unwanted side effects.
Barbara Harper, a former obstetric and neonatal nurse, is a midwife, doula, childbirth educator and social reform advocate. She is an internationally recognized expert on waterbirth and childbirth practices and she teaches and consults within hospitals, universities and community groups worldwide. She was recognized in 2002 by Lamaze International for her contributions to promoting normal birth on an international level. She is the author of Gentle Birth Choices - new revised edition released in September 2005. She has produced two remarkable videos, Gentle Birth Choices and Birth Into Being: The Russian Waterbirth Experience. Her next book The Complete Guide to Waterbirth will be ready for publication in 2011, followed immediately by "Embracing the Miracle: How Pregnancy, Birth and the First Hour Influence Human Potential." Barbara has dedicated her life to helping heal the way we welcome babies into the world and to help parents and providers understand the benefits of the use of warm water immersion during labor. Barbara considers her greatest achievement, though, the birth and rearing of her three children (all in successful careers). Her two youngest sons were born at home in water. She lives in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida where she is active in her community as a volunteer, a midwifery and doula mentor and teacher.
Her primary website is www.waterbirth.org (with www.embracingthemiracle.com and www.gentelbirthguardians.com in development)
Her Gentle Birth Guardian five day intensive for maternity care workers (midwives, doctors, doulas, nurses - anyone who works with women in birth) has been taught successfully to rave reviews in Canada, Taiwan, Mexico and now in the US. It is highly acclaimed and fills up quickly.
For more information about any topic you can email Ms. Harper at: info@waterbirth.org
