A practical, illustrated handbook describes a wide variety of alternative approaches to childbirth--including birthing centers, water birth, and home birth--and their advantages and disadvantages. (Health & Fitness)

Your Premature Baby is the definitive guide to every aspect of nurturing a child who is born too soon. Reassuring and frank, it is the only book that informs and guides parents right from their baby's too-early birth into the growing years. Features of this book: - Exactly how prematurity affects a baby - Explains hospital terms, procedures, treatments, and equipment - What to expect as your baby progresses through treatment and procedures - Gives advice for coping practically and emotionally - Help and ideas for parents from when their baby comes home up to age 5 - Discusses the latest research into the causes of prematurity and its preventions - Offers a wide variety of resources for further information and support

Offers a reference guide to pregnancy and childbirth, discussing morning sickness, back pain, gestational diabetes, and breast-feeding with a week-by-week guide to changes in both mother and baby.

An essential resource for anyone with MS who is considering having a child. • Firsthand advice from a woman with multiple sclerosis who has successfully borne and raised a child. • Contains information that can change the lives of many of the 250,000 women in the United States suffering from MS. • Highly readable format puts the facts at your fingertips. Diagnosed with MS at twenty-eight, author Judy Graham gave birth for the first time at the age of thirty-eight. Her new book Multiple Sclerosis and Having a Baby provides other women who are considering starting a family with the kind of genuine and useful insight that comes only from firsthand experience. Multiple Sclerosis and Having a Baby makes available not only the medical answers prospective parents need, but also the practical suggestions and sound advice that will help them meet the many unique and sometimes difficult challenges that face couples living with MS. In this highly informative and readable book, Graham asks and provides answers for nearly every question a woman with multiple sclerosis might want to consider before having a baby. With the latest medical facts and valuable data culled from hundreds of interviews with women who have multiple sclerosis and are currently raising a child, Graham straightforwardly addresses such issues as the possibility of relapse, genetic predisposition to MS, sexuality and fertility, pregnancy, postnatal care, and breastfeeding as they relate to women with MS.Â

Introduces expectant women to the joys, terrors, and humiliations that accompany the over-idealized experience of pregnancy.

The Ultimate Guide to Pregnancy for Lesbians covers everything you need to make the thrilling and challenging journey to motherhood: from choosing a donor to tracking fertility to signing the right papers on the dotted lines. Rachel Pepper's lively, easy-to-read guide is the first place to go for up-to-date information and sage advice on everything from sex in the sixth month to negotiating family roles. Why a second edition? When the acclaimed first edition appeared, the author's daughter was only a few months old. This new edition takes into account the parenting know-how Pepper has developed over the intervening six years, as well as the evolving legal status of lesbian parents, and the increasing importance of the Internet for information on fertility, sperm banks, and donors. The resource section is greatly expanded, as are the sections on each trimester of pregnancy, on childbirth, and on life with a newborn. And Pepper provides more insight into preconception planning for both single lesbians and couples. An indispensable resource, The Ultimate Guide to Pregnancy for Lesbians is now bigger and better.

A revised and updated guide to the Bradley Method of natural childbirth utilizes the teamwork approach to help fathers work with mothers to provide a joyful birthing experience that eliminates drugs, shortens labor, lessens complications, and promotes healthy newborns with a blend of prenatal exercise, nutrition, and psychological preparation. Original. 27,500 first printing.

In Gentle Birth Choices, Barbara Harper, a mid-wife, nurse, and mother, outlines the elements of gentle birthing and provides a new model of maternity care that reduces the need for high-tech crisis intervention, and focuses instead on preparation and good health for mother and child. More than 50 black-and-white photographs by Suzanne Arms capture the joy and intensity of birth.  Â

Natural Health after Birth addresses a new mother's need to replenish her body, mind, and spirit so that she can nurture her child. This book provides support both for women who are stay-at-home moms and those who must return to their jobs soon after the birth.

Details an alternative to Lamaze childbirth that includes a more natural breathing method and a totally unmedicated birth that many second-time parents prefer