Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering: A Doctor's Guide to Natural Childbirth and Gentle Early Parenting Choices

This is a good book to read before your first child (or any child,) especially if you are concerned about the current hospital situation in the United States. It sheds light on many procedures that are done simply because they are standard practice, not necessarily because they are important. If you're trying to decide what's best for you & your baby, this is a great book to read. As with all books, read with an open mind—take what works for you and leave the rest. I appreciated the insights from a medical doctor & mother, on ultrasounds, home birth, medical procedures, and more.

I really love this book. It is written for people who are already spiritually minded and wish to move outside of the mainstream medical conglomerate. I feel like a lot of the reviews saying the author is condescending are from people who are still programmed through this medical establishment and the book triggers a lot of defensiveness within them over their choices. The book is written from the heart and doesn’t beat around the bush or sugar coat things. Lots of valuable information and truly inpowers you to take back your body autonomy and sovereignty in regards to your birth journey. At the same time, the author does not shame the choices the mother makes, only offers varying information rather than fear mongering a woman into a certain pattern or birth story. This book is not going to praise ultrasounds or unnecessary technological interventions so if that is the route you are set on taking just bypass this book and find one that is more closely aligning to your wants and needs.

The only thing I am concerned about with this book (and let me be clear, I am ideologically aligned with the author), is the unequal information Ms. Buckley gives about breach birth. She describes her own unassisted footling breach homebirth, and her "just knowing" that the baby would be okay, and it was. I am a midwife-in-training and a mom to 2 midwife-assisted daughters. The science about birth (and breach birth in particular) says that nearly always, birth will turn out fine with little or no assistance. But there are those cases (like shoulder dystocia, or certain complications of breach) where a competent midwife is needed to either stabilize an emergency for transport, or resolve an emergency. Parents need to know that, while unassisted homebirth is usually safe (and is something I support), they are taking a risk that an emergency might arise that results in the death of a baby that otherwise would have been preventable if a midwife were on the scene. For some people, that risk is acceptable, and even preferable to the near-certainty of over-use of interventions in a hospital birth. Unfortunately, not everyone has access to safe homebirth midwifery care because of the laws in the US (and in Australia).

Dr. Sarah Buckley provides a comprehensive research based look at hospital birth vs home birth. I wish I had this information years ago as I would definitely have made better choices during pregnancy and birth. She is able to explain clearly some of the more clinical information without losing the reader and the more personal stories of her own births were a lovely addition. She’s a little more “woo woo” than most I think, but her personal birth stories are shared in good faith. Some women are still very fearful of their spiritual force and will not relate but for those women who know there is more to this life than what our physical senses tell us and are aware of their own intuition, this is the book for you.If you are looking to educate yourself on the often unnecessary interventions in a hospital setting, who better than an MD to explain it? Sarah’s approach to breastfeeding, co sleeping and mother- infant bonding are very helpful as well.I would recommend this to my midwifery clients.

This is the most research based birth nerd book I’ve ever read. It is required reading for my midwifery class and the depth of information is not lost on the average person. It’s essentially a research paper with some of the authors own experiences added in. It presents evidence to support “undisturbed birth”, and shows how current modern obstetrical care does not typically support this model. It is meant to present evidence and make you think. Highly recommend!

This book is a must read for the pregnancy/parenting novice or anyone seeking good information on pregnancy birth and parenting. It summarizes and corroborates a lot of well-referenced information, that I as a student midwife and mother of 2 have found from other reputable sources, in a very palatable way; intermixed with beautiful personal birth and parenting stories. Highly recommended.

This was a required reading for a doula certification I’m pursuing. It’s an okay read with good studies/information listed throughout. However, the author’s general bias was too strong for my liking. I’m personally looking into a rounded (balance of understanding in both holistic and theocratic) approach to birth, where this book pushes for all natural (no medicine, intervention, etc) birth with a small pinch of exceptions. She does still have good information and seeing her perspective was interesting. Over all, I’d only recommend certain chapters rather than the whole book if you’re looking into a similar approach like me.

Dr. Sarah Buckley’s book Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering is a written reclamation of every woman’s birth right!Through these chapters, we journey between worlds~ the medical, the natural and the personal, and are invited to explore all with an open mind and intuitive heart to make an informed choice. She reminds us that through Healing birth, we are healing the Earth; taking us back in time to when birth was a powerful initiation for our ancestral mothers; a rite of passion, love, power and surrender. Where birth meets death, and death meets life- like the changing of Mother Earth’s Seasons, of the moons phases, of the natural cycle of all life where “birth is as safe as life gets”. Her hopes in writing this book is that each woman recognizes the “importance of taking the time to think and feel...of using heart and mind to make the choices that best serves our Children to be, our families, and ourselves”Through each of the trimesters,she shares her own stories of pregnancies, birth and Beyond, weaving in the intuitive and nature(al) ways of pregnancy and,the dance of birth intertwining with informative research and scientific knowledge about the nourishment of breastfeeding, the benefits and dangers of medical interventions and...”when to leave well enough alone.”In the poetic and magical words of Sarah, “Finally...birth is vast and multifaceted; radiant and mysterious. Birth contains multitudes, and through her we birth our multitudes. We give birth to our hopes and fears, to our ecstasies and our agonies, to our joy and our disappointments. We give birth to our babies, each one perfect and radiant. We give birth through our instinct,which will match us perfectly with our babies, who are, and always will be, instinctive creatures.May we all be blessed through instinctive birth”.

Knowledgeable author, personal experiences as well as extensive research listed, very interesting read.

Recommend for every expecting mom.

I'm a bit disappointed by this book. I'm about halfway through and I do find that it contains useful information, so I plan to finish it. However, I do find the author's way of talking about her own birthing stories a bit woo-woo for me (not what I was expecting from a doctor), which was a bit off-putting at first. I also find that the first part of the book (the part focused on pregnancy and birth) focuses a lot on the horrible things that can happen if you have medical interventions -- rather than focusing on how to actually try to have a natural pregnancy/birth. Reading it, I find myself just feeling more afraid that interventions will be imposed on me rather than feeling empowered or better informed about how to move forward with my goals of natural birth. That being said, I do like learning about the medical research, so it's interesting. But if I had to buy it again, I probably wouldn't.

I really enjoyed this book, it gave me confidence during my recent labour. It's a nice read for expectant mothers.