Intimate stories from notable and influential women that celebrate the early stages of life and the start of motherhood. A book that changes the narrative about postpartum, Life After Birth illustrates what life is really like after birth—not just days and weeks later, but also years afterward. What is the transition to motherhood really like? From a parent in the military to a mother’s pregnancy of 42 weeks, Life After Birth is filled with accounts of strength, resilience, and power. Every birth is a unique story. While we tend to focus our attention on the arrival of a baby, in pregnancy parents are also introduced to a new self. Life After Birth reflects on the many physical changes as well as the myriad of feelings that are brought on by this transformation and the inseparable bond a new life brings. Revealing real experiences and raw emotions, this book is a celebration of life and a celebration of the human body.

Forget about the baby for just one minute; what about you? New motherhood changes everything. Few women are prepared for the radical shifts in identity, emotional intensity and relations with friends, family and the father of their child. In this fully revised and updated edition of the classic book that first bust the conspiracy of silence surrounding the upheaval of new motherhood, Kate Figes draws on medical and historical research, the invention of 'good' motherhood as well as personal testimony to reassure new mothers everywhere that they are not only normal if they find things difficult, but also doing fine.

Life After Birth is your essential guide to the wide and diverse spectrum of motherhood. In this companion, Jessica Prescott and Vaughne Geary share their evidence-based approach to the lost but ever important art of caring for yourself as a mother, including recipes from their postpartum food delivery service Mama Goodness. They cover everything from herbal wisdom and nutritional support, to sleep and breastfeeding tips, communication tools, managing siblings, how to nourish your body, parent on your period, and so much more. A stunning hardback with full colour photography, Life After Birth will help you prepare, not just for the first six weeks following your birth, but for the months and years that follow. By tuning into your body, nourishing it, celebrating it and honouring the cyclical nature of womanhood, this book will help you thrive in your new role as a mother.

A widely acclaimed young writer's fierce new novel, in which childbirth and new motherhood are as high-stakes a crucible as any combat zone.

Going to school, hanging out with friends, and being a normal teenager was all Summer Owens knew until her fifteenth birthday changed her life forever. Nine months later, she was a mother and didn't even know the father of her baby. "In Life After Birth, Owens depicts the real-life struggles she faced as a teenage mother. By sharing how she managed to finish high school, combat emotional issues, graduate from college with honors, build a career and buy a house all as a young, single mother, she demonstrates that life doesn't have to end when a child is born to a teenager. "Life After Birth details the heartbreak, struggle, and victory of a young woman thrust into the painful realities of being a teenage mother. Any young woman, or young man for that matter, will read this book with eyes wide open to the detailed struggles of being a young mother that strips away the delusional romanticism of having a baby too early. Summer sobers the reader to a better way and encourages those who are walking in her path that they too can have life after birth." Dr. Stacy L. Spencer, Author and Pastor, New Direction Christian Church

Paul presents an in-depth examination of how personalities are formed by biological, social, and emotional factors.

"Britta, you are a master at what you do." —P!NK, Grammy-winning singer-songwriter As expecting parents, you’re bombarded with more information—and opinions—than ever about the “right” approach to pregnancy and childbirth. How do you navigate this ocean of information—not only to find the best practical solutions for you personally, but also to embrace this incredible opportunity for emotional and spiritual transformation that comes from bringing a child into this world? With Transformed by Birth, Dr. Britta Bushnell has created the transformative, intelligent, and empowering pregnancy and childbirth guide you’ve been waiting for. This book embraces birth as a metamorphic experience—a rite of passage in which you are initiated by opening to the unbidden, embodying your own wisdom, and gaining freedom from limiting beliefs. Our culture has inundated us with limiting ideals that prevent us from fully engaging in the journey of pregnancy and childbirth—including a need for control and certainty, vilification of pain, and reverence for technology and intellectual knowledge, among others. Dr. Bushnell helps you clear away unwanted beliefs and behaviors so you can open to the meaning and power of this uniquely life-changing experience. Here she offers daily practices, rituals, exercises, and more to help you cultivate resilience, power, and connection during this transformative time. Childbirth is more than just having a baby. Transformed by Birth invites you to discover childbirth as a transformational experience that alters your knowing of who you are and lasts long after pregnancy and birth are over.

The delivery of high quality and equitable care for both mothers and newborns is complex and requires efforts across many sectors. The United States spends more on childbirth than any other country in the world, yet outcomes are worse than other high-resource countries, and even worse for Black and Native American women. There are a variety of factors that influence childbirth, including social determinants such as income, educational levels, access to care, financing, transportation, structural racism and geographic variability in birth settings. It is important to reevaluate the United States' approach to maternal and newborn care through the lens of these factors across multiple disciplines. Birth Settings in America: Outcomes, Quality, Access, and Choice reviews and evaluates maternal and newborn care in the United States, the epidemiology of social and clinical risks in pregnancy and childbirth, birth settings research, and access to and choice of birth settings.

As you prepare to become a mother, you face an experience unlike any other in your life. Having a baby will redirect your preferences and pleasures and, most likely, will realign some of your values.As you undergo this unique psychological transformation, you will be guided by new hopes, fears, and priorities. In a most startling way, having a child will influence all of your closest relationships and redefine your role in your family's history. The charting of this remarkable, new realm is the subject of this compelling book.Renowned psychiatrist Daniel N. Stern has joined forces with pediatrician and child psychiatrist Nadia Bruschweiler-Stern and journalist Alison Freeland to paint a wonderfully evocative picture of the psychology of motherhood. At the heart of The Birth of a Mother is an arresting premise: Just as a baby develops physically in utero and after birth, so a mother is born psychologically in the many months that precede and follow the birth of her baby.The recognition of this inner transformation emerges from hundreds of interviews with new mothers and decades of clinical experience. Filled with revealing case studies and personal comments from women who have shared this experience, this book will serve as an invaluable sourcebook for new mothers, validating the often confusing emotions that accompany the development of this new identity. In addition to providing insight into the unique state of motherhood, the authors touch on related topics such as going back to work, fatherhood, adoption, and premature birth.During pregnancy, mothers-to-be talk about morning sickness and their changing bodies, and new mothers talk about their exhaustion, the benefits of nursing or bottle-feeding, and the dilemma of whether or when they should return to work. And yet, they can be strangely mute about the dramatic and often overwhelming changes going on in their inner lives. Finally, with The Birth of a Mother, these powerful feelings are eloquently put into words.

At the age of fourteen, Amy Wright Glenn began to question the Mormon faith of her family. She embarked on a life long personal and scholarly quest for truth. While teaching comparative religion and philosophy, Amy was drawn to the work of supporting women through labor and holding compassionate space for the dying. Amy shares moving tales of birth and death while drawing on her work as a birth doula, hospital chaplain, and her own experience of motherhood. We are born, we die, and in between these irrevocable facts of human existence the breath weaves all moments together. "Birth, Breath, and Death" entwines story, philosophy, and poetic reflection into transforming narratives that are full of grace.