Sheila Kitzinger
Little, Brown, £18.99
Definitely not a handbook to steer you through pregnancy and labour, this is instead an absolutely fascinating international exploration of birth.
Sheila Kitzinger obviously comes with a ‘history’ – she has strongly-held opinions on the right of women to choose home birth if they are not at high risk in pregnancy for example.
This book draws on everything she has learned in her work around the world on the subject of birth and packs in information on the different ways birth is managed around the world.
Where else could you learn that the USA has 34,000 obstetricians and 9,000 midwives, and the UK has 25,000 midwives and 3,000 obstetricians, a bare fact revealing the different ways pregnancy and birth are managed in these two developed countries?
But the most interesting aspect of the book is the research Sheila has carried out over the decades in many different countries, many of them still developing, and how their styles contrast with ours.
In rural Sicily, each birth is attended by a number of godmothers (comare) with one to look after the baby at birth, one to look after the booties, one to look after the babyclothes, etc. These women have to dress the baby in these garments and are responsible for washing them too!
In Egypt women are fed eggs in labour and after the birth to increase the body heat and in Mexico at least two women, chosen by the mum-to-be, attend labour, one called “she who raises her up” who supports the woman and “one who grabs up” who crouches to catch the baby.
The contrast in different styles of birth management is never hammered home in a way that makes you think only one method can be right, but rather provides an engaging series of narratives that will make you want to come back again and again to learn more, months and
years after having your own child.
- Click here to read more about Sheila Kitzinger
- Read articles written by Sheila on water birth and post traumatic stress disorder
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