What are you reading?

[Erlaine]

I know I've seen lots of reading lists pop up here and there on MDC and now I can't find any of them. I want to get some new books out of the library/buy used somewhere. What books about pg does everyone recommend? DP and I are about to start in on Birthing From Within for real (we cracked it open months ago, but stopped reading it when we weren't getting pg right away). I've read a lot over the months, but now I want to read/reread some good pg books, and titles are evading my memory.

Recommendations?

[andi-mama]

The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth, Henci Goer
Ina May Gaskin's Guide to Childbirth, Ina May Gaskin

[starkyld]

I read a lot of pregnancy-related (and some parenting) stuff in the months before we started trying to conceive (which unnerved my husband a little bit, but now I think that he's glad that I did).

Guide-type books I've read:

• The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth by Henci Goer
• The Complete Organic Pregnancy by Alexandra Zissou and Deirdre Dolan
• The Vaccine Book: Making the Right Decisions for your Child by Robert Sears

Theory-type books I've read:

• Pushed: The Painful Truth about Childbirth and Modern Maternity by Jennifer Block
• Birth: The Surprising History of How We are Born by Tina Cassidy

Memoir/Anthology:

• The Baby Catcher: Confessions of a Modern-Day Midwife by Peggy Vincent
• Mommy Wars: Stay-at-Home and Career Moms Face Off on their Choices, their Lives, their Families edited by Leslie Morgan Steiner

Fiction:

• Midwives by Chris Bohjalian

I just today picked up Ina May's Guide to Childbirth & some do's-&-don't's-style pregnancy reference guide that I plan on taking with a big heaping tablespoon of salt and heavily annotating. I also have but have not yet started Birth as an American Rite of Passage & I'm not yet finished with The Mommy Myth & The Newly Non-Drinking Girl's Guide to Pregnancy.

[knittinmama]

Originally Posted by andi-mama

The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth, Henci Goer
Ina May Gaskin's Guide to Childbirth, Ina May Gaskin

I second Ina May Gaskin's Guide to Childbirth!

I have the other book on my list and have had many good recommendations for this book!

[~Jenna~]

I LOVED The Baby Catcher!

[MommaGreenBean]

I loved Ina May Gaskin's book, and The Baby Catcher

Not reading much of anything this time, I think I read it all last time

I also enjoyed reading birth stories

[Bella Catalina]

• The Complete Organic Pregnancy by Alexandra Zissou and Deirdre Dolan - this one I think you need to realize we can't control everything, just do our best, but it did open my eyes to a lot I didn't think about before
• The Baby Catcher: Confessions of a Modern-Day Midwife by Peggy Vincent - reading this right now and it's wonderful!!!
  
• Ina May's Guide to Childbirth by Ina May Gaskin
  
• Gentle Birth Choices by Barbara Harper (w/ free birth DVD, at least on Amazon)

I want to read The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth by Henci Goer but haven't bought that yet, and I'm still looking for a good homebirth book...

[AugustineM]

As just a good basic book, I really liked "Pregnancy, Childbirth and the Newborn" by Penny Simkin. It has a great section on dealing with active labor that I found very helpful. I also liked Mothering magazine's book on Natural Pregnancy and Birth... I can't remember the name now!!

I'm currently reading "Artemis Speaks" which is probably the first book ever written on VBAC and it's fascinating.

I also really liked "Pushed" and I loved "Spiritual Midwifery" by Ina May Gaskin.

Another interesting one is "Magical Child" by Joseph Pearce. It has a lot of good info about the benefits of natural childbirth, and it's also a very technical and informative book about early child development (infant-3-4 years).

[Patchfire]

I just finished Evolution's End, which is also by Joseph Chilton Pearce. I have Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves as the next to pick up.

On the pregnancy front, I've been re-reading some more 'technical' stuff, like Heart & Hands, and making any notes of stuff that I think dh might ask about later on... I know myself and I know I won't want to 'research' anything when I am farther along, but I don't want to blow him off, either.