Modern birth has become scary, medical, and often, an experience mamas fear. However, it doesn’t have to be this way. There are many resources available to get educated and take power of your birth. After planning my last homebirth, and beginning to plan my second (see my birth plan here), I have found endless amazing resources to learn how to take charge of pregnancy and birth and get the experience you want.
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The Best Books To Read During Pregnancy
The Positive Birth Book: A New Approach to Pregnancy, Birth, and The Early Weeks
This book will help you understand all your options in pregnancy and birth and decipher what the best plan is for you. It’s full of facts and information and is not judgmental, regardless of what kind of birth you want. It even gives information on how to have a woman-centered and empowered C-section. I also recommend this book because it pulls on experiences from many different women quoting them on their personal birth experiences.
Natural Childbirth The Bradley Way
A straight forward guide to succeed in natural child birth. The book goes into depth on how to prepare your body for a healthy labor, what labor will entail, how to involve your birth partner, and how to get the information you need to make informed decision for your birth and avoid induction and surgery.
Like a Mother: A Feminist Journey Through the Science and Culture of Pregnancy
A funny and personal reflection and assessment of the modern culture around pregnancy and birth as well as the science of pregnancy and birth. A great guide to understand the basics from miscarriage, pregnancy, and labor, to postpartum and breastfeeding.
Sacred Pregnancy A Loving Guide and Journal for Expecting Mothers
A spiritual guide to pregnancy. This is one of my favorites for pregnancy because it provides resources and ideas to connect to your pregnancy experience and your baby. This also doubles as a pregnancy journal with weekly journal prompts to ensure you are feeling positive and connected to your pregnancy process.
This book focuses on women’s natural abilities to birth and empowering them to believe in their bodies abilities with science backed information. It’s a great guide to understanding how to optimize your chances of a natural birth, naturally lower pain during labor and even learn about orgasmic birth.
A helpful guide on making pregnancy, birth, and postpartum a positive and calm experience that pulls research from the neuroscience and mind/body medical field. The book provides effective methods to reduce stress and pain while improving confidence and connection.
Hypnobirthing Home Study Course Manual: Step-by-Step Guide To an Easy, Natural, and Pain Free Birth
A great guide to learn hypnobirthing and avoid other forms of pain management. This book boasts “Over 85 percent of Hypnobirthing Home Study Course mothers birthed naturally and easily, with most saying they were entirely comfortable throughout the birth and didn’t even think of asking for pain medication.” The book focuses on teaching you to control your thoughts and gain control of your experience.
I hope with all of these empowering resources you will be able to kick the great of pregnancy and birth and gain control over your experience.
Also read The Best Resources for Planning Your Ideal Birth and My Natural Birth Plan for my information and inspiration!
Shop Marama Naturals Plant Based Pregnancy & Baby Care at Ecocentric Mom!
This is a great resource! Before my birth I was so afraid of the process and wish I had read more about it before hand. I’m going to save this list for my next pregnancy! Thank you for sharing 🙂
Good list of resources! I’m not sure I saw anything that covers if things go wrong (and there are a million things that can go wrong). My pregnancy was extreme. I suffered from HG the whole pregnancy and had pre-eclampsia followed by an emergency c-section before I even entered the 3rd trimester. While my story was extreme, many women have some sort of issue during pregnancy and resources to help them through that would be great!
Hi,
As a new mother, being informed is very vital for a healthy and better experience! I wish I knew about these books when I was pregnant!
Thank you for such a useful tool!
This list will be helpful for a lot of expecting mamas out there!
Having a baby can be scary. Thanks for the information!
This is a great guide and an interesting read!
I wish I had had this post before having my son. I just did a lot of research on Google Scholar and wrote up a detailed natural birth plan. Things went well and I was very proud of myself. I’m hoping we’ll expand our family, so these suggested reads may come in handy after all.
What an amazing list of books. I definitely did a lot of reading leading up to my delivery and it made my birth plan that much better.
So much great information! Thanks for sharing!
Great list! I read through a bit of Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth a bit and found it helpful. Attending a course or getting a doula also helps to a positive experience!
What a great idea to make a list of pregnancy books to read while describing what each book contains! I felt overwhelmed when I was trying to decide what I should read to prepare for my own birth. There are so many out there, and you don’t know what’s going to be beneficial to you personally until you read each one – but who has that kinder of time?
Personally, I think the only book I read all the way though during my pregnancy was Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth, which you have listed here. It was incredibly helpful in positively shaping my mindset toward the birthing process. As a result, I had a beautiful natural hospital birth (read my birth story here: https://mamarissa.com/my-natural-hospital-birth-story/).
Every woman is different and will benefit from different things. Fortunately, there is so much information online as well as books about pregnancy and labor.
Great resource for so many excellent reads during pregnancy!
This is a great list for new moms! I wish I had read more books when I was pregnant with my son 9 years ago!
The material you suggested is fantastic! I have had 5 girls, and each birth is different. I have had an epidural and c-sections. But, the one I gave birth to naturally, was 11.4oz. Yes, naturally! Your body is amazing…do not be afraid, it can be done!🍕👓🚢
This is such a great list of books for moms to be. So glad that you shared this
I read the Bradley Method and Ina May’s book and both were informative and helpful to me. Both births went extremely well. Highly recommend both.
Thanks for sharing these great books! I read Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth before my second baby and I’m looking for another good option for this third pregnancy!