If you are expecting a baby, The Doula Guide to Birth: Secrets Every Pregnant Woman Should Know from Penguin Random House is the most comprehensive book you will find on doulas and preparing for birth in the 21st century.
If you are a doula or healthcare professional, you'll find techniques that even experienced practitioners say are new to them.
Well-known doulas and birth professionals whose input helped shape this book include Penny Simkin, Ilana Stein, Debra Pascali-Bonaro, Kate MacLellan, Gina Forbes, Dr. William Camann, Dr. Marjorie Greenfield, Dr. John Kennell, Elizabeth Davis, and others.
Topics include:
- Doulas as a form of pain relief
- Doulas and the prevention of prematurity
- Information for parents-to-be in all family structures (married, single, partnered, heterosexual, LGBTQ, and mothers whose baby will be adopted by another family)
- Labor, the hardest work you'll ever love
- New ways to push out a baby
- Can doulas prevent all interventions?
- Back labor: the good news
- Using belly dance for birth
- How to use a "walking" epidural
- Supporting teens: a talk with Jane Fonda
- A list of doula groups around the world
- When should you really go to the hospital in labor?
- Labor is not about dilation
- 12 alternatives to a vaginal exam in labor
- Are vaginal exams medically necessary?
- What is fetal distress? A guide to the baby's heart rate
- Evidence-based approaches to a safer induction
- Labor techniques anyone can use!
- Laboring with disabilities or chronic illness
- How to use sexuality in labor
- Eating normally in labor
- How to sleep in labor
- Be empowered for unexpected scenarios
- When healing from unplanned interventions is needed
- Birth plans and birth essays
- Best practices for the birth of twins
- Paying for your doula using a baby gift registry
- Celebrities who've used doulas
- Get ready now: what really happens postpartum
- Self-evaluation survey about your birth