When I was pregnant with my son in 2000, I was lucky enough to be able to take Penny's childbirth education class. Now that I'm recently pregnant with my second child, I plan to take it again, and buy this new edition. This is the text book for her class, and I swear I took it to the hospital with me when I was in labor! My copy is dog eared and stained (don't ask!). While Penny does advocate natural births (who wouldn't think it's better?), she is a wealth of information about every kind of birth possible, and is the least judgmental person I've ever known! She speaks WORLDWIDE about childbirth practices. She provided my husband and I the information we needed to make the best decisions for our family. This book could only be better if Penny made a housecall when you purchased it!

I really love this book!

I'm 4 months pregnant with my first child and I'm alternately scared to death and excited beyond belief. I've been soaking up information like crazy--getting books from the library, buying whatever looks good in the bookstore, and my midwife has given me a number of books to read, this being the most recent. Out of all of them, I think this one is the best.

It is extremely thorough, not just with clinical information, but also descriptions of how you might feel, both physically and emotionally as you progress through pregnancy, labor, and post-partum. It covers everything I've been asking myself about what's happening to me, the baby, and what I can expect. Most importantly it covers what you do with the baby once you give birth and take them home, enough to get you over the "What do I do?!" fear and allowing you to get settled in as a parent.

I also really like the focus on the birth partner as well as the pregnant woman; it's important to understand what both partners are going through during this highly confusing and magical time. I'm giving this book to my husband as soon as I'm finished reading it for the second time, as I want him to know what's going on with me and also let him know that I understand what might be going on with him. It's a great book for anyone who is involved in pregnancy in any way. After he's done with it, I plan to pass it on to our families to read.

The only thing I didn't like about the book was the way it was organized, to me some of the chapters seemed out of order. It may have been the way I was approaching it, or that I was looking for specific information that was different from the flow. However, the chapters are very well laid out and titled, so it was easy to flip through the headers at the top of the page and find exactly the section I wanted, when I wanted it.

Overall, a very thoroughly researched and produced book. Laid out in a manner that's easy to read and navigate, not at all intimidating and also not sentimental or biased. I would highly recommend this book to ANYONE who is pregnant, thinking about getting pregnant, related to or friends with someone who is pregnant, anyone who is curious about how it works, generally everybody.

Don't hesitate to click the Add To Cart button and buy it now :)

This book was my primary reference during pregnancy. All of my possible choices and outcomes are listed in organized tables. Invaluable when writing a birth plan. All childbirth procedures are described with pros and cons. Everything explained well - they treat the reader like an intelligent person who wants to understand the whole process and make intelligent choices. Highly recommended.