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Midwives magazine: Issue 7 :: 2011

Author: Nicole Croft
Publisher: Vermilion
Price: £11.99
ISBN: 9780091935504

Review by Lynn Woolley

Nicole Croft has taken a refreshing approach to helping women prepare for birth and beyond. She avoids lots of technical explanations and instead focuses on the need to prepare mentally for birth, stressing the importance of support, information, environment and mindset in achieving normal birth.

There is a strong emphasis on how women can use the positive influences of instinct and primal response to suppress the rational brain during labour. Croft offers some useful advice for both women and their partners to help close down the kinds of external stimuli that cause distractions during labour.

The chapters are laid out with a short summary at the end. One section is designed to be read by partners with useful hints and tips.

The book doesn’t end with the birth itself, but instead delivers a ‘warts-and-all’ insight into the early days of life with a new baby, offering warmth, insight and hope.

I did however find some frustrations in this book. Croft makes both implicit and explicit references to clinicians that could potentially cause concern to mothers reading the book and it gives the impression that NHS midwives are too busy to provide care. There were alarming descriptions of clinical practice too.

The role of the midwife was sidelined in the chapter on support in labour, with around one page covering this subject area, while there were a five pages on the role and advantages of using a doula. It did read a bit like an advert and may have the effect of marginalising some of the proposed readership for whom a doula package is not an option.

I don’t want to detract from this book as it is a fantastic resource for empowering women to achieve normal birth; it’s just a shame that it may also have the effect of reducing some women’s confidence in midwives.