The Positive Birth Book: A New Approach to Pregnancy, Birth and the Early Weeks

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I love this book. Everyone’s going to love this book. Because it gives mothers what they now most need – accurate facts, proper reassurance, and about a thousand reasons to be excited about birth.” Hypnobirthingwill change your mindset towards birth and give you the tools needed so that you can navigate your birth - and any twists and turns - with confidence, feeling calm and in control throughout. I think the book would have benefited from a section on improving on one's previous birth experiences. Yes, the idea of PTSD and healing from traumatic birth was covered, but more as an "if this happens to you, you will be prepared" sort of way. An explicit reference to this sort of birth baggage and further resources for healing for someone who has already had this sort of birth before being exposed to the idea of birth positivity and The Positive Birth Movement would have been, in my opinion, incredibly helpful and appropriate here. I finished this book in 3 days and it definitely gets the thumbs up from me. It’s like you’re learning but you don’t feel like you’re learning”. A brilliant riposte to all the ways women are encouraged to approach childbirth with fear and deference, Hill’s book leaves the reader not just well-informed, but with a renewed sense of pride in the power of the female body”

A great read: honest, lively, fresh and helpful. This book puts women in the driving seat which is key to positive change.”I really like it because it’s about how to love and respect your body. My favourite bit is about making a period kit. I’ve already asked my mum to put in a treat and a special note for when I get my first period.” The whole gist of both the class and this book is the idea that we, as pregnant women, have the power to give birth to our babies and to have a birthing experience that can be positive regardless of the decisions we make or the unexpected variables that may be encountered. Home birth or hospital birth, epidural or pain relief free, vaginal or cesarean, riddled with complications or completely smooth sailing... Whatever ends up happening, childbirth is a better experience the more informed you are ahead of time about your choices, so that no matter what happens, you can advocate for yourself and your baby. The Positive Birth Book is a must-read for every mum-to-be. By showing that birth can be an amazing, empowering and life-enhancing experience, Milli Hill is giving birth to a whole new way to think about bringing life into the world.” While the author’s intent seems to be to empower women to make choices, she is quite distrusting of the medical profession and her approach is more likely to create fear among pregnant women of doctors rather than encourage them to trust in their knowledge and expertise when working with them. She talks often of how women traditionally gave birth at home without doctors intervening and the nostalgia with which she talks about the past suggests she thinks giving birth was ‘better’ then because it was more ‘natural’. She seems to conveniently forget that before modern medicine, women and children were more likely to die in childbirth than today in large part because medical care including facilities and research were not as good then as they are today. As a journalist since 2013 she has written for many publications including the Telegraph, Mail, Guardian, Independent, ipaper and Mother&Baby, and has appeared on BBC Radio 2, BBC 5 Live, talkradio, LBC and many leading podcasts. She is a member of the advisory group for Sex Matters and lives in Somerset with her partner and three children.

What you need to know about exercise in pregnancy from Charlie Launder, author of Bumps and BurpeesThis book is really reassuring and has given me a lot of confidence and reduced fears going into birth. The message that women are made to do this and that you have choices available to you for whatever makes you most comfortable is something we need to talk about more. We have really turned child birth into something to be feared which is not always true and is definitely not helpful.