Sheila Kitzinger (1929–2015)

This is a fantastic book if you are a birth junkie and little tired of reading the how to's often detailed in many of the other childbirth books out there. This book takes a look at birth across cultures and through time. It is fascinating to see just how alike and how different we all really are. The photographs alone are worth the cover price. If you can find this book I'd highly recommend adding it to your library.

Nicely done. Largely unbiased and with lots of helpful stretches and exercises that other books lack. Still wishing there was a bit more about the post- partum period.

What a beautiful, beautiful book! Freaked me out a little when I read it as a non-breastfeeding twenty year old (pictures of a mom breast-feeding an infant and her three year old at the same time?!), but later when I was serious about breast-feeding I loved it. Now that I'm past my child-bearing years, I still look back through this book with longing :) I miss the wonderful year I spent breast-feeding my youngest.

Through over 30 first-hand accounts of birth, written by women and their partners, this book focuses on the actual experience of childbirth. It takes a wide variety of experiences - long and short labours, active births, vaginal births, Caesareans and an induction - and considers what can go wrong.