Based on the hit documentary that inspired a vibrant online community, this innovative approach to birthing shows women how to maximize childbirth's emotional and physical rewards. With more than 4 million babies born in the United States each year, too many women experience birth as nothing more than a routine or painful event. In her much-praised film Orgasmic Birth, acclaimed filmmaker Debra Pascali-Bonaro showed that in fact childbirth is a natural process to be enjoyed and cherished. Now she joins forces with renowned author and activist Elizabeth Davis to offer an enlightening program to help women attain the most empowering and satisfying birth experience possible. While an orgasmic birth can, for some, induce feelings of intense, ecstatic pleasure, it is ultimately about taking control of one's own body and making the most informed decisions to have a safe, memorable, and joyful birth day. Whether women choose to give birth at home, in a hospital, or in a birthing center, Orgasmic Birth provides all the necessary tools and guidance to design the birth plan that's best for them. Featuring inspiring stories from mothers and their partners and filled with practical advice and solutions, this one-of-a-kind resource is the next frontier of natural, intimate childbirth.

A guide based on the award-winning coauthor's documentary explains how to render childbirth a natural and enjoyable experience, counseling women on how to take control of their bodies and prepare a birthing plan in accordance with personal needs. Original.

Nurturing Beginnings takes you through a new mother's journey and into your own as you explore what it means to be "in service of a postpartum woman and her family." It is a step by step instruction manual for postpartum doulas in their work with new families. Nurturing Beginnings was one of the first comprehensive postpartum training manuals and is on the current DONA International Reading List for Postpartum Doulas. Chapters include: The Role of The Doula, Home Visiting, Providing Care with Caution: Protecting Health & Safety in The Home & Car, Honoring Postpartum Women and Teaching Self-Care, Easing Postpartum Adjustment, Appreciating Your Clients' Cultural Diversity by Karen Salt, Supporting The Breastfeeding Mother (Donna Williams & Opal Horvat Advisors) Newborn Basics: Appearance, Behavior, and Care, Offering Support to Partners and Siblings, Unexpected Outcomes: Caring for The Family at a Time of Loss, Nurturing Yourself by Carlita Reyes, Pursuing Professional Development and Building Your Practice plus poems by Maureen Cannon and "A Doula Speaks" writings from the authors adding insights to the chapters. Revisions and contributions to the updated version were made by Leah DeCesare and contributions by leaders in the field who permitted us to reprint their previously published work include Penny Simkin, Marshall Klaus, John H. Kennell, Cathy Romeo, and William Sears. Nurturing Beginnings has a tremendous amount of links and resources valuable to birthworkers of varying levels of experience. We hope you enjoy reading Nurturing Beginnings and making it a valuable tool amongst your birth resources.

The authors bring pregnant women and their partners this potent brew of tips and techniques for intimacy and great sex.

The classic book on home birth. Stories of the experiences of parents and midwives during the birth process plus a technical manual for midwives, nurses, and doctors. Includes information on prenatal care and nutrition, labor, delivery techniques, care of the new baby, and breast-feeding.

'Fetus ejection reflex, 'milk ejection reflex, 'Sperm ejection reflex, 'Orgasmogenic cocktail'... These are examples of terms used by Michel Odent in his study of the ecstatic/orgasmic states associated with different episodes of human sexual life.

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.

Renowned for her practice's exemplary results and low intervention rates, Ina May Gaskin has gained international notoriety for promoting natural birth. She is a much-beloved leader of a movement that seeks to stop the hyper-medicalization of birth—which has lead to nearly a third of hospital births in America to be cesarean sections—and renew confidence in a woman's natural ability to birth. Upbeat and informative, Gaskin asserts that the way in which women become mothers is a women's rights issue, and it is perhaps the act that most powerfully exhibits what it is to be instinctually human. Birth Matters is a spirited manifesta showing us how to trust women, value birth, and reconcile modern life with a process as old as our species.

Designed to transform the experience of childbirth, this manual calls upon the use of the timeless and powerful symbol of the labyrinth in 12 simple meditations and ceremonies. Ideal as a tool for centering the self and calming the body and mind, this guide ushers readers through the inner journey of the childbearing year--from pregnancy and labor through the postpartum stage. A variety of labyrinths--including four childbirth-related labyrinths from the Hopi and Papago cultures in the American Southwest and two others from India--are presented in this handbook and cover topics that include helping mothers focus on their emotional and spiritual state preparation for birth, aid in calming the mind and steadying breathing during birth, and allowing parents to fully process their experiences. Instructions for drawing a classic labyrinth, ideas for personalizing the design, and labyrinth "seeds"--start-up patterns for six variations of labyrinth--are also included.

Birth and sex are often talked about as if they were contrasting experiences. In fact, they each involve the same rush of hormones in an action drama in which mind and body work in harmony. When a woman is free to follow her instincts and give birth naturally, waves of endorphins surge in the bloodstream with the same energy as in ecstatic lovemaking. Birth and sex mingle to become one in the thrilling, sweet, intense and overwhelming experience of creation. Yet in the Western high-tech birth culture the environment often inhibits the spontaneity of birth, resulting in pain and distress. Pr.