Customer Reviews

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

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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."

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!

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.

I love Sarah Buckley's book! It accomplishes a rare feat: combining a compassionate voice with the weighty authority that a practising doctor and meticulous researcher can bring to her subject. Sarah's book is a treasure-trove. For anyone who cares about the critical formative period of child development from conception to early childhood, it delves beyond the sentimental to provide a formidable data-base, as practical as it is touching and inspiring.

As a father I found Sarah's book brilliant and a pleasure to read.
As a psychologist in private practice, parent-educator and author, her book has been one of my most valued and oft-quoted resources.

I doubt that anyone who reads Sarah's book could ever again choose a hospital birth with obstetric intervention (unless there are clear medical complications). Reading left me feeling angry that the many psychological and medical risks presented by today's obstetric excesses have been so heavily downplayed by the industry. Why weren't we told? On the other hand, Sarah has presented clear neurological and endocrinological evidence of the blissful beginnings that natural and gentle birth, and gentle parenting, can bring about. Her book paves the way to a far more loving world.

The great gift of Buckley's book is that she relieves parents of a century of needless and baseless iatrogenic fears: fear of pregnancy, fear of birth, fear of babies, fear of the body. The reward is a font of natural, undisturbed hormonal bliss; for mothers, newborns, and even for fathers. Buckely's extraordinary book midwives the birth of a new, healthier, and more loving culture.

Robin Grille, psychologist, author

I have loaned this book to many people with different backgrounds and beliefs - doctors, account executives, homesteaders, home birthers, hospital birthers - and all have thoroughly enjoyed the book and found something helpful and useful. For me personally, this is a valuable resource because it does give a different and totally valid viewpoint than the standard American medicalized pregnancy/birth.

Dr. Sarah Buckley combines accent wisdom along with her practical medical side. This book is long overdue in a country who is longing for answers to unanswered questions lost from generation to generation. Thank you Sarah!!

This is one of my favorite books. There is a lovely mix of science and personal experience in this book that makes it an easy read and very informative too. It is a must-read for all expectant parents and birth professionals.

This book is very comprehensive in introducing childbirth from a doctor and a mother's point of view. As a lay person, I find this "doctor's guide" easy to follow and interesting to read. There are hard facts and explanations about childbirth as well as the author's own birth stories. After reading this guide, I feel informed and confident about my childbirth choices. I highly recommend it to all mothers-to-be.

I read this book while pregnant with my first son and planning a homebirth. This book should be an essential read for any mother, with any birth plan. It goes through the pros and cons of so many decisions that are given to us, ranging from prenatal testing, ultrasounds, Group B strep, etc. Doctors typically present this information with only one view-point... You Should Do It. Dr. Buckley doesn't put it that way, and I love being educated about subjects, rather than just being told what to do. I thought ultrasounds were 'normal' and everyone should get one. Not the case, especially if you have an experienced midwife... they can typically 'feel' more than the ultrasound can see! This is just a minute part of the vast knowledge she presents in this book.

This was one of the first books I read (along with "Ina Mays Guide to Childbirth") and I can tell you that it has helped shape my mentality on my body, birth, my unborn baby, and our parenting.

Buy This Book!

With a title like "gentle birth, gentle mothering" I expected a soft science type of book, filled with uplifting stories of childbirth and tales of the woes of medical intervention. But I was really impressed with the author's citations of studies to back up her claims. This emerges as an authoritative resource for decision making around parenting and I really appreciated that. The author's personal experiences with childbirth and breastfeeding are sprinkled throughout the book and are kind of heavy in a type of spiritualism/mysticism but they added a more personal, human touch to the subjects the author covers so I think they worked well. This book very much reminded me of Ina May Gaskin's Guide to Childbirth, with its combination of inspirational stories and research, which I believe so far is the best childbirth book out there.