Transformation Through Birth: A Woman's Guide [Paperback]

Claudia Panuthos (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0897890388 | ISBN-13: 978-0897890380 | Publication Date: January 30, 1984

"Readers are given a glimpse of how protecting the integrity of birth, beginning on a personal level with our own peace of mind, may help bring about more positive, conscious birthing for everyone." Midwifery Today "can encourage anyone to realize the power they possess in their own bodies." Lorraine Driscoll, M.D., Journal of the American Medical Women's Association "I can guarantee that Claudia will touch and affect you on a variety of different levels. You will learn something about yourself and your own perceptions by reading this terrific book." Sylvia Klein Olkin, Positive Pregnancy Fitness

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Interesting reading . . . can encourage anyone to realize the power they possess in their own bodies.”–Lorraine Driscoll, M.D. Journal of the American Medical Women's Association

“Readers are given a glimpse of how protecting the integrity of birth, beginning on a personal level with our own peace of mind, may help bring about more positive, conscious birthing for everyone.”–Midwifery Today

“Ought to be required reading for all health care providers. There is a world of insight and practical advice in this clear book. Even women who never expected to give birth again may find much needed healing.”–Ina May Gaskin, New Age Magazine

“I can guarantee that Claudia will touch and affect you on a variety of different levels. You will learn something about yourself and your own perceptions by reading this terrific book.”–Sylvia Klein Olkin, Positive Pregnancy Fitness

About the Author

CLAUDIA PANUTHOS is founder and director of Offspring, a childbirth counselling center.

Product Details

• Paperback: 213 pages
• Publisher: Bergin & Garvey Paperback (January 30, 1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0897890388
• ISBN-13: 978-0897890380
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #894,877 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The one to turn to, when making sense of birth experience, September 29, 2001

By 

"japdavis" (Cincinnati, OH USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Transformation Through Birth: A Woman's Guide (Paperback)

As a midwife, this is the book I turn to when working with women who have had an unexpected, traumatic or diminishing birth experience. There are many ways a woman can come to understand her experience, but this book helps women process in a way that heals the hurt, honors and then transforms the anger, and brings the lessons of one's past experiences to a new perspective. Hopefully, this may help women face another pregnancy, mother her chldren without that burden, and to continue her life work of being and becoming the woman she is most able to be. Recommended for processing a "bad" birth experience, however the woman perceives it. Insightful for recognizing the psychological, emotional, and relational power of childbirth, which does transform us all.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars recovering by reading and writing, July 12, 2010

By 

irem arikan - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Transformation Through Birth: A Woman's Guide (Paperback)

I purchased this book nearly 3 years ago and read several times to heal myself after the rather traumatic birthing experience that I and my son went through. Our birth story maybe was one of the most ordinary hospital birth you can observe in an hospital environment in istanbul. It started quite normally and healthily and one intervention after another leaded to a ces. section after 10 cm dilatation, felt like I was totally ignored, not having any control in the experience. How it happened why it happened, I questioned myself, been angry to myself, again all too familiar state after such an experience. Apparently, there were many mistakes from my side, not changing my care provider in the first place, not listening to my instincts, and some more. Instantly I was in search for something, someone, a method, anything to let go all these overwhelming feelings. Books, searches in the internet, forums, birth stories, I have searched something I could identify with my own experience and myself, searched an answer to my pain. Then one of the books I wanted to read was "transformation through birth" by claudio panuthos. I have read it first time maybe in less than a day and with each letter written by women who went through difficult experiences became afriend, a real friend who listens my feelings at that time. They were sincere, heartfelt letters. Besides this sincere aproach, the book's content is a very good survey of birth related literature, I find the text scholarly assembled yet a very easy reading. The book's tone is akin to the philosophy of "gentle birth" and "hypnobirthing"- not that it suggests exercises for a gentle birth or meditations- but with a lot of study conducted to improve birthing environments. C. Panuthos stresses rather the shorthcomings of western approach to birthing and the authority claimed by doctors and hospitals. These difficult and maybe very much repeated facets of birthing environments are yet examined in a compassionate way, which I appreciated much. Because what I really did not want was some discourse to blame doctors and hospitals. The book investigates the birthing situations from mother's angle, father's angle, doctor's angle, society's angle and negotiates different situations. Baby's perspective, is that missing? well, in the context of this book, the loss of families is explored in mental and spiritual ways. For baby's perspective I could recommend "The Secret Life of the Unborn Child" by T.Verny and J.Kelly.Thanks for this book, I benefited reading the chapters in a very difficult time and started to write my feelings as a journal to heal myself also as suggested in the book.I would very much like to translate this book into Turkish where I think many women in Turkey would benefit from.