Good books on pregnancy and birth will introduce you to new information, expand your understanding of both details and broader picture, and help you more effectively navigate your childbearing year with clarity and peace. As a midwife, I’ve found that the “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” series does just the opposite! Whether you are a stories person, or relax into lots of good data and studies, find the book(s) that help find your ballast and grow your confidence. Here are some tried and true volumes that generally have reliable info, respectful tones, and empower their readers to more capably navigate their birth journeys and health care experiences.

Time is a frequently unnamed and unacknowledged medical complication plaguing most births currently taking place in hospitals and even birth centers. Considering the fast-paced nature of modern culture, perhaps it follows that the issue of time is having a never-before-seen, and increasingly disastrous effect, on pregnancy, birth and postpartum recovery.

Our deeper understandings of birth may come to us from the most unexpected sources, and at the most unanticipated times. During a stretch when I was selling insurance, I found myself in a very unusual place: a stud farm for some of the most valuable horses in the world. One of the stalls emanated energy that felt like so much like birth, I peeked in the large horse box. It was a familiar scene, but with a four-legged mama; a swollen mare was pacing restlessly in the afternoon quiet, deeply breathing and blowing. Her unborn foal was already worth about three million dollars (in 1990 dollars!) because of the lineage it shared with two Triple Crown winners. As horseman explained the barn birth I was about to see, it was entirely shocking how MUCH better it was than humans experience in modern hospitals!

As a midwife, I’ve gotten calls from mamas about spotting for over 40 years, here is the conversation that I have with them. Women are scared, their husbands and partners are scared. People need gentle reassurance, and information on their choices, so they can make decisions that are best for them.