Recommended Reading

"If we hope to create a non-violent world where respect and kindness replace fear and hatred, we must begin with how we treat each other at the beginning of life. For that is where our deepest patters are set. From these roots grow fear and alienation or love and trust."  © Suzanne Arms

Uneducated people believe what they are told...Educated people question what they are told" ~author unknown~

Midwife means “With Women” We listen to women, we talk with women, we stay with women while they labor and give birth!

Midwifery and Homebirth

The Farmer and the Obstetrician by Michel Odent MD
The industrialization of farming and childbirth developed side-by-side during the twentieth century.  A collective global awareness was sparked by a series of disasters, particularly mad cow and foot-and-mouth diseases in animals.  Industrialized childbirth has not yet reached the same phase of its history.  Odent raises the question, “Which disaster are we waiting for?”  If there is a book that confronts us with concerns about the current trend of medical birth, this is the one.  A must read for all birthing parents and professionals by a doctor who lectures internationally and is the author of many books in many languages

Birth Reborn (2nd edition) by Michel Odent MD
Michel Odent’s experience as head of the maternity unit in Pithiviers, France, brings sanity to a world where birth has become one of chemical and technological interventions. Using a plain, sommon sense approach of helping women to trust and believe in their own ability to give birth, he achieves safer and more positive birthing experiences than the western world. Using very simple means, he and the staff work to humanize and feminize birth. There have been few milestones in the worldwide movement to reform and humanize the birth experience. Birth Reborn is one of them.

Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth by Ina May Gaskin

Rediscovering Birth by Sheila Kitzinger

Birth Your Way: Choosing Birth at Home or in a Birth Center by Sheila Kitzinger

Homebirth by Sheila Kitzinger

Pregnancy and Birth: Your Questions Answered by Dr. Karina Reynolds, Dr. Christoph Lees, and Grainne McCartan

The Thinking Woman’s Guide to a Better Birth by Henci Goer

VBAC (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean)

“Religion, medicine and politics run on secrets, power, money and fear.”  ~Gail Johnson~

Silent Knife by Nancy Wainer Cohen and Lois J. Estner

Open Season by Nancy Wainer Cohen

The Cesarean by Michel Odent MD

Birth After Cesarean by Bruce Flamm, MD

Breastfeeding

The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding by La Leche League International

The Complete Book of Breastfeeding by Marvin Eiger, M.D. and Sally Wendkos Olds

Diet and Nutrition

The Naturally Healthy Pregnancy by Shonda Parker

Mommy Diagnostics by Shonda Parker

The Hallelujah Diet By George Malkmus

Pregnancy, Children and the Hallelujah Diet by Olin Idol, N.D, C.N.C.

The China Study by Colin Campbell

Midwife Novels and Stories - Some are fictional; Some are true stories

The Birth House by Ami McKay

Dr. Frau by Grace H. Kaiser

The Midwife’s Song by Brenda Ray

Hannah, Mormom Midwife by Jaroldeen Asplund Edwards

The Midwife’s Apprentice  by Karen

Diary of a Country Midwife by Willa Shaffer