Amazon.com: Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering: A Doctor's Guide to Natural Childbirth and Gentle Early Parenting Choices (9781587613227): Sarah Buckley, Ina May Gaskin: Books

Buy New

or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
or
Amazon Prime Free Trial required. Sign up when you check out. Learn More
Buy Used
Used - Very Good See details
$8.31 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details

or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
   
Sell Back Your Copy
For a $3.00 Gift Card
Trade in
More Buying Choices
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering: A Doctor's Guide to Natural Childbirth and Gentle Early Parenting Choices
 
 
Tell the Publisher!
I'd like to read this book on Kindle

Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.

Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering: A Doctor's Guide to Natural Childbirth and Gentle Early Parenting Choices [Paperback]

Sarah Buckley (Author), Ina May Gaskin (Foreword)
4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)

List Price: $16.99
Price: $11.31 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
You Save: $5.68 (33%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.
Want it delivered Monday, February 27? Choose One-Day Shipping at checkout. Details

Book Description

December 2, 2008
An authoritative guide to natural childbirth and postpartum parenting options from an MD who home-birthed her own four children.

Sarah Buckley might be called a third-wave natural birth advocate. A doctor and a mother, she approaches the question of how a woman and baby might have the most fulfilling birth experience with respect for the wisdom of both medical science and the human body. Using current medical and epidemiological research plus women's experiences (including her own), she demonstrates that what she calls "undisturbed birth" is almost always healthier and safer than high-technology approaches to birth. Her wise counsel on issues like breastfeeding and sleeping during postpartum helps extend the gentle birth experience into a gentle parenting relationship.

Frequently Bought Together

Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering: A Doctor's Guide to Natural Childbirth and Gentle Early Parenting Choices + Ina May's Guide to Childbirth + Birthing from Within: An Extra-Ordinary Guide to Childbirth Preparation
Price For All Three: $35.69

Show availability and shipping details

Buy the selected items together
  • In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details

  • Ina May's Guide to Childbirth $12.24

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details

  • Birthing from Within: An Extra-Ordinary Guide to Childbirth Preparation $12.14

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details



Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

An authoritative guide to natural childbirth and postpartum parenting options from an MD who home-birthed her own four children. * Speaks to a new generation of parents who are concerned about the medicalization of childbirth and want current and science-based info about alternatives.

About the Author

SARAH BUCKLEY, MD, is an internationally known authority on natural birthing and parenting choices. She has published numerous articles in Mothering magazine and Midwifery Today. She lives in Brisbane, Australia.

 THE AUTHOR SCOOP

How long did it take you to write this book?Around ten years since I wrote the first material, and around 9 months to rewrite and put it all together.What was the hardest thing about writing a book?Combining it with looking after 4 children When did you know you were a writer?When I was 10, I told my class teacher I wanted to be an author! Favorite childhood book?I was a precocious reader, I read Jane Eyre at age 10 and loved Wuthering Heights.If you had to boil your book’s message down to one sentence, what would it be? Trust your body, trust your baby, follow your instincts What are you working on now? A commissioned report on the hormonal orchestration of labor If you had a superpower, what would it be? Sorting things out on every level, which includes a special talent for removing embedded hair ties from Barbie hair. 

Product Details

  • Paperback: 352 pages
  • Publisher: Celestial Arts; 1 edition (December 2, 2008)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1587613220
  • ISBN-13: 978-1587613227
  • Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.8 x 9 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #101,126 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

 

Customer Reviews

14 Reviews
5 star:
 (11)
4 star:    (0)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:
 (3)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.4 out of 5 stars (14 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

86 of 104 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Just a Little Too "Out There" for Most Readers, January 7, 2009
By 
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering: A Doctor's Guide to Natural Childbirth and Gentle Early Parenting Choices (Paperback)
Let me start out by saying that I really appreciate Sarah Buckley and the work she's done. I have read some of her articles in various places and was SUPER excited to get this book.

Also, I am a proponent of natural birth and mothering. I have given birth at home (on purpose!), am tandem nursing my infant and toddler, practice sleep sharing via Family Bed, etc., so I was definitely coming to this book with an open, even eager, mind.

That being said, by the time I had read through the author's 4 birth stories, the story of her son's placenta and the narrative of her breastfeeding experiences (all of which are included scattered throughout the book, highlighted in gray), I knew this wasn't the book I was hoping for.

While much of the information Sarah shares in this book is well-researched, informative, and enlightening, there is too much sort of mystical, magical, spiritualism present, as well as an advocacy of practices that are so unconventional as to be considered "fringe", for it to be an all-purpose guide to natural birth and mothering.

I think most readers looking for a basic guide to natural childbirth will be turned off by some a the more bizarre, New-Agey stuff in this book, and might therefor conclude that something like natural birth or homebirth is only for a "certain type" of person, one who draws large pastel mandalas in preparation for birth and during pregnancy uses "Brazilian rhythms and hip swirls to spiral [an] ambivalent baby deeper into [one's] pelvis."

While I respect Ms. Buckley's decisions regarding her own births, I can't help but feel that someone reading about her decision to give birth without outside assistance and to forgo any prenatal medical care, including blood pressure tests, might not feel too confident about the advice given in this book. Maybe I'm just not "there" yet, but I can't quite head into pregnancy and birth "[trusting] my body and my baby to tell me, through feelings, dreams, and impulses, what was needed." (Of course, it helps that both the author and her husband are M.D.'s, which made the footling breech birth of their baby with a non-pulsating cord somewhat less dangerous.)

I appreciated Sarah's description of all the wonderful things her son's placenta did for him while he was in utero. However, keeping the placenta attached to the baby after birth (tucked into a velvet bag and taken out regularly to be dried and salted) until it fell off naturally (so-called "lotus birth") is, well... gross.

All in all, there are some great parts to this book - I especially love the chapter on "Love, Attachment and Your Baby's Brain" and on safe sleep-sharing. And while a certain select population of pregnant women and mothers will find everything in this book to be up their alley, I can't help but think that most will find it too "out there" to be helpful. I certainly can't see myself loaning it out to pregnant friends the way I have with Henci Goer's "The Thinking Woman's Guide to Better Birth." I would say try that one instead, or even the Sear's "Birth Book."
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing Childbirth Book, January 24, 2009
By 
BNA (North Carolina, USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering: A Doctor's Guide to Natural Childbirth and Gentle Early Parenting Choices (Paperback)
I love this book. It is my favorite childbirth book for many reasons. I love the fact that it is a collection of articles which makes it super easy to read. Dr. Buckley's wisdom is priceless. I am a childbirth educator and doula and I recommend this book to all of my students and clients. In my opinion there is no better childbirth book! She opens you to a new way of thinking. I know I began to question things that are considered standard in maternity care and made different choices than I would have without the knowledge gained through her book. Her insight into the hormones in labor and breastfeeding is profound! I use her book when I teach my classes and draw on it for doula clients as well as my own pregnancies. It goes beyond childbirth into breastfeeding and parenting as well. You learn on many different levels. Thank you Dr. Buckley a hundred times over for finally getting this amazing book published in the USA so more women can benefit from the wisdom it contains!
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars heart and head, March 4, 2009
By 
Unmani (Wal Wal Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering: A Doctor's Guide to Natural Childbirth and Gentle Early Parenting Choices (Paperback)
REVIEW FOR

GENTLE BIRTH, GENTLE MOTHERING

I need to declare a bias in reviewing this book.

I am a grandmother of 3 little boys whose mothers have felt reassured and validated by reading and rereading `Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering' .

And I am a co-journeyer with Sarah Buckley in the Melbourne based `Women's Mysteries Advanced Circle' led by Shivam Rachana..

As I opened the covers of this book and moved from the foreword and introduction to the initial pages, I was inexorably drawn to skip to the moving stories of Sarah's birthings of Emma, Zoe, Jacob and Maia, to her piece on breastfeeding `The Gift of a Lifetime', to her celebration of the intelligence of Jacob's placenta and her other gentle family practices. Then my brain wanted to know more about the science behind the `overdue baby', `Gestational Diabetes', and the practice of ultrasound etc. And then more finding out about the `nocebo' effect (constantly reminding the pregnant woman about potential problems and the stress that this places on a pregnancy). And after that I flipped to the exhaustive 41 pages of notes, book references and studies which back up the scientific aspect of the book. And then to Ch 6- the groundbreaking work on the `ecstatic birthing hormones '.(To my knowledge Sarah is unique in gathering for the scientific world an understanding of this `hormonal orchestration of the birth process').

The gift of this book is exactly as has been so often said - a marriage of the deeply authentic and personal with the best of our scientific heritage - the data, the tests, the studies.

The brain and the heart dancing together.

I reflect, as someone who did the best I knew how with my own births in the 70's - a book like this would have been gold. I would have devoured it. I would have found it readable, thought-provoking, gentle and poetic.

I would have felt looked after emotionally, and as a thinking person.

And I would feel stronger in listening to the ancient echoes of my own mammalian instincts.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Most Recent Customer Reviews











Only search this product's reviews



Inside This Book (learn more)
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
undisturbed birth, epidural babies, bed sharing mothers, instinctive birth, choosing homebirth, hormonal orchestration, oxytocin peak, cesarean babies, early clamping, epidural mothers, mammalian babies, early cord clamping, placental transfusion, cesarean mothers, cesarean surgery, sharing sleep, overdue babies, epidural drugs, delayed cord clamping, cesarean baby, oxytocin system, cord blood banking, cord blood banks, synthetic oxytocin, sharing babies
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
United States, Mother Nature, New Zealand, Michel Odent, Cochrane Collaboration, Jeannine Parvati Baker, Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative, American Academy of Pediatrics, Preventive Services Task Force, The Pink Kit, World Health, Lotus Birth
Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Surprise Me!
Search Inside This Book:

What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?


Tags Customers Associate with This Product

 (What's this?)
Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
 

Your tags: Add your first tag
 

Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store

If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store. Learn more

Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
Search all Amazon discussions
   
Related forums





Look for Similar Items by Category


Look for Similar Items by Subject