Child development comprises children's cognitive, linguistic, motor, social and emotional development, communication, and self-care skills. Understanding developmental periods means that possible problems or roadblocks can be planned for or prevented. Knowledge of child development is necessary for achieving educational goals and is integral to promoting children's healthy and timely development. Global Perspectives on Prenatal, Postnatal, and Early Childhood Development is an essential scholarly reference source that compiles critical findings on children's growth periods and characteristics as well as the principles that affect their development. Covering a wide range of topics such as at-risk children, early intervention, and support programs, this book is ideally designed for child development specialists, pediatricians, educators, program developers, administrators, psychologists, researchers, academicians, and students. Additionally, the book provides insight and support to health professionals working in various disciplines in the field of child development and health.

Featured on BBC Radio 2 and BBC Radio 5 Live Selected as one of the Independent's 10 best pregnancy books for expectant parents Birth is a feminist issue. It's the feminist issue nobody's talking about. FEATURING A BRAND NEW CHAPTER 'A powerful read, whether you're pregnant or not' Independent Finally blasting the feminist spotlight into the labour ward, Milli Hill encourages women everywhere to stand and deliver, insisting that birth is no longer left off the list in discussions about female power, control and agency. From the importance of birth plans to your human rights in childbirth, and including birth stories from women across the world, this call-to-arms will help you find your voice, take an active role in your choices, and change the way you think about childbirth. Praise for Give Birth Like a Feminist 'I feel so lucky to have read Milli's book while pregnant, she completely changed my way of looking at giving birth' Ella Mills, author of Deliciously Ella

Management, Organization and Childbirth: Towards a New Model for the Birth Path explores the complex topic of the birth path with a multidisciplinary magnifying glass on the paradigms, languages, and tools critical to the organization, management, and clinical science. The work consists of five chapters. The first chapter provides a multidimensional analysis of childbirth. The second chapter presents an organizational analysis that moves in unison with different models of health. The third chapter studies the birth path in organizational and cynical terms by describing it in its core processes. The fourth chapter proposes a study conducted in the Italian context, which identifies some useful determinants for redesigning the birth path. The fifth chapter formulates a proposal for redesigning the birth path based on a new health paradigm. The proposed model offers useful insights for multiple categories of readers. To students of medicine and higher education tracks in healthcare management, it can offer opportunities to raise awareness not only regarding multi-professional practice but also regarding confrontation with complementary disciplines. To practitioners and policy makers, it can provide useful stimuli to promote rational and informed decisions around the childbirth. To researchers studying the health context within different disciplinary domains, the model can offer unexplored research spaces within the new business complex system.

This book investigates why women choose 'birth outside the system' and makes connections between women's right to choose where they birth and violations of human rights within maternity care systems. Choosing to birth at home can force women out of mainstream maternity care, despite research supporting the safety of this option for low-risk women attended by midwives. When homebirth is not supported as a birthplace option, women will defy mainstream medical advice, and if a midwife is not available, choose either an unregulated careprovider or birth without assistance. This book examines the circumstances and drivers behind why women nevertheless choose homebirth by bringing legal and ethical perspectives together with the latest research on high-risk homebirth (breech and twin births), freebirth, birth with unregulated careproviders and the oppression of midwives who support unorthodox choices. Stories from women who have pursued alternatives in Australia, Europe, Russia, the UK, the US, Canada, the Middle East and India are woven through the research. Insight and practical strategies are shared by doctors, midwives, lawyers, anthropologists, sociologists and psychologists on how to manage the tension between professional obligations and women's right to bodily autonomy. This book, the first of its kind, is an important contribution to considerations of place of birth and human rights in childbirth.

"Jacki Pritchard has done an excellent job in writing her new book. The many scripts are immensely creative and wide-ranging. Any Hypnotherapist working with childbirth should have this book in their tool-bag; I totally recommend it." - Steve Burgess, Hypnotherapist and Director of Lionheart Training This practical volume provides resources and guidance for practising hypnotherapy with pregnant women and their birthing partners. Hypnotherapy for Pregnancy and Birthing begins with an overview of the topic and discusses a range of complex issues and vulnerabilities that might arise during sessions, before moving onto setting up and running group and/or individual sessions. Then, presenting techniques to work with pregnancy and birthing draws on a range of methodologies including solution-focused, metaphors (Ericksonian), Gestalt therapy, benefits approach and regression therapy. It covers: * Hypnosis, pregnancy and birthing * Getting into trance and relaxation * Breathing * Practising self-hypnosis and working on issues * Preparing for birthing * Bonding with baby * Working with worries, fears and phobias * Dealing with trauma and the unexpected * Loss and bereavement * Ego boosting. Containing over 70 customisable scripts and designed to stimulate reflection, this book is a valuable resource for student, newly qualified and experienced hypnotherapists working with pregnancy and birthing.

Highlighting the experiences of midwives who provide care to women opting outside of guidelines in the pursuit of physiological birth, Claire Feeley looks at the impact on midwives themselves, and explores how teams and organisations can support or discourage the promotion of women's birth choices. This book investigates the processes, experiences, and sociocultural-political influences upon midwives who support women's alternative birthing choice and argues for a shift in perspective from notions of an individual's professional responsibility to deliver woman-centred care, to a broader, collective responsibility. The book begins by exploring the normal birth debates to demonstrate how hegemonic birth discourse and maternity practices have detrimentally affected physiological birth rates, as well as the wellbeing of women who opt outside of maternity guidelines. It also provides real life examples of how midwives can facilitate a range of birthing decisions within mainstream midwifery services. The second part develops a new model to explore how a midwife's socio-political context can significantly mediate or exacerbate the vulnerability, conflict and stigmatisation that they may experience as a result of promoting alternative birth choices. Part three further explores the implications of the model, looking at how team and organisational culture can be developed to better support women and midwives, making recommendations for a systems approach to improving maternity services. Discussing the invisible nature of midwifery work, what it means to deliver woman-centred care, and the challenges and benefits of doing so, this is a thought-provoking read for all midwives and future midwives. It is also an important contribution to interprofessional concerns around workforce development, sustainability, moral distress and compassion in health and social care.

Highlighting the experiences of midwives who provide care to women opting outside of guidelines in the pursuit of physiological birth, Claire Feeley looks at the impact on midwives themselves, and explores how teams and organisations can support or discourage the promotion of women's birth choices. This book investigates the processes, experiences, and sociocultural-political influences upon midwives who support women's alternative birthing choice and argues for a shift in perspective from notions of an individual's professional responsibility to deliver woman-centred care, to a broader, collective responsibility. The book begins by exploring the normal birth debates to demonstrate how hegemonic birth discourse and maternity practices have detrimentally affected physiological birth rates, as well as the wellbeing of women who opt outside of maternity guidelines. It also provides real life examples of how midwives can facilitate a range of birthing decisions within mainstream midwifery services. The second part develops a new model to explore how a midwife's socio-political context can significantly mediate or exacerbate the vulnerability, conflict and stigmatisation that they may experience as a result of promoting alternative birth choices. Part three further explores the implications of the model, looking at how team and organisational culture can be developed to better support women and midwives, making recommendations for a systems approach to improving maternity services. Discussing the invisible nature of midwifery work, what it means to deliver woman-centred care, and the challenges and benefits of doing so, this is a thought-provoking read for all midwives and future midwives. It is also an important contribution to interprofessional concerns around workforce development, sustainability, moral distress and compassion in health and social care.

HypnoBirthing(R) has gained momentum around the globe as a positive and empowering method of childbirth. Here's why: HypnoBirthing helps women to become empowered by developing an awareness of the instinctive birthing capability of their bodies. It greatly reduces the pain of labor and childbirth; frequently eliminates the need for drugs; reduces the need for caesarian surgery or other doctor-controlled birth interventions; and it also shortens birthing and recovery time, allowing for better and earlier bonding with the baby, which has been proven to be vital to the mother-child bond. What's more, parents report that their infants sleep better and feed more easily when they haven't experienced birth trauma. HypnoBirthing founder Marie Mongan knows from her own four births that it is not necessary for childbirth to be a terribly painful experience. In this book she shows women how the Mongan Method works and how parents they can take control of the greatest and most important event of their lives. So, why is birth such a traumatic event for so many women? And why do more than 40% of births now end in caesarian section, the highest percentage in history? The answer is simple: because our culture teaches women to fear birth as a painful and unsettling experience. Fear causes three physical reactions in the body--tightening of the muscles, reduced blood flow to the birthing muscles, and the release of certain hormones--which increase the pain and discomfort of childbirth. This is not hocus-pocus this is science.

"Jacki Pritchard has done an excellent job in writing her new book. The many scripts are immensely creative and wide-ranging. Any Hypnotherapist working with childbirth should have this book in their tool-bag; I totally recommend it." - Steve Burgess, Hypnotherapist and Director of Lionheart Training This practical volume provides resources and guidance for practising hypnotherapy with pregnant women and their birthing partners. Hypnotherapy for Pregnancy and Birthing begins with an overview of the topic and discusses a range of complex issues and vulnerabilities that might arise during sessions, before moving onto setting up and running group and/or individual sessions. Then, presenting techniques to work with pregnancy and birthing draws on a range of methodologies including solution-focused, metaphors (Ericksonian), Gestalt therapy, benefits approach and regression therapy. It covers: * Hypnosis, pregnancy and birthing * Getting into trance and relaxation * Breathing * Practising self-hypnosis and working on issues * Preparing for birthing * Bonding with baby * Working with worries, fears and phobias * Dealing with trauma and the unexpected * Loss and bereavement * Ego boosting. Containing over 70 customisable scripts and designed to stimulate reflection, this book is a valuable resource for student, newly qualified and experienced hypnotherapists working with pregnancy and birthing.

Our book aims to provide those working in the maternity services, including those in general practices, with an understanding of what it means to be on the receiving end of care. Together with a description of various types of traumatic birth, we explain some of the reasons why women vary in terms of how traumatised they are by their birth experience. We provide information, encouragement and support for maternity staff to help them lessen the incidence of birth trauma, and to develop the confidence to help women when birth trauma does occur. The authors are a senior counsellor and an obstetrician, each with a long experience of helping women who have had difficult births. The approach of each to the subject is different but complementary. The book covers the psychological and emotional aspects of traumatic birth as well as the medical issues and includes a section on the effect of traumatic birth on the staff themselves. The market for this book is practising midwives and obstetricians, who by understanding the prevalence of traumatic birth and some of its causes can contribute to its reduction. Those in their training years will find it helpful at the outset of their practice. It will also be of interest to general practitioners, health visitors and counsellors.

Our book aims to provide those working in the maternity services, including those in general practices, with an understanding of what it means to be on the receiving end of care. Together with a description of various types of traumatic birth, we explain some of the reasons why women vary in terms of how traumatised they are by their birth experience. We provide information, encouragement and support for maternity staff to help them lessen the incidence of birth trauma, and to develop the confidence to help women when birth trauma does occur. The authors are a senior counsellor and an obstetrician, each with a long experience of helping women who have had difficult births. The approach of each to the subject is different but complementary. The book covers the psychological and emotional aspects of traumatic birth as well as the medical issues and includes a section on the effect of traumatic birth on the staff themselves. The market for this book is practising midwives and obstetricians, who by understanding the prevalence of traumatic birth and some of its causes can contribute to its reduction. Those in their training years will find it helpful at the outset of their practice. It will also be of interest to general practitioners, health visitors and counsellors.

Management, Organization and Childbirth: Towards a New Model for the Birth Path explores the complex topic of the birth path with a multidisciplinary magnifying glass on the paradigms, languages, and tools critical to the organization, management, and clinical science. The work consists of five chapters. The first chapter provides a multidimensional analysis of childbirth. The second chapter presents an organizational analysis that moves in unison with different models of health. The third chapter studies the birth path in organizational and cynical terms by describing it in its core processes. The fourth chapter proposes a study conducted in the Italian context, which identifies some useful determinants for redesigning the birth path. The fifth chapter formulates a proposal for redesigning the birth path based on a new health paradigm. The proposed model offers useful insights for multiple categories of readers. To students of medicine and higher education tracks in healthcare management, it can offer opportunities to raise awareness not only regarding multi-professional practice but also regarding confrontation with complementary disciplines. To practitioners and policy makers, it can provide useful stimuli to promote rational and informed decisions around the childbirth. To researchers studying the health context within different disciplinary domains, the model can offer unexplored research spaces within the new business complex system.

Maternity services and choices for labour and birth are fast evolving. Hypnobirth involves preparation for childbirth using tried and tested hypnotherapy techniques in harmony with midwifery best practices and increasing numbers of women are turning to the technique. Written by two experienced practitioners, this is the first evidence-based practice book for medical professionals on this subject. Chapters include coverage of: What hypnosis is and the history of hypnobirth The power of the mind and the effect of language Relaxation and breathing techniques The neocortex and hormones Birth partners, relationships, women's advocates and primary supporters Throughout the book the authors provide health professionals working in clinical midwifery practice with information and evidence-based findings to support the use of hypnobirth. The book includes case studies, scripts and reflective questions to encourage a deeper understanding of the techniques and issues and to engage and inspire the reader. Hypnobirth is essential reading for midwives, obstetricians, student midwives, doulas and any practitioner involved in preparing and supporting pregnant women for labour.

The rhetoric of choice is much used in UK health policy and home birth is one of the three options that women are entitled to choose between when deciding where to have their baby. However, many women making this choice run into considerable opposition from the maternity service. Home Birth: the politics of difficult choices focuses on the experiences of women whose choices were opposed by health professionals during their pregnancy journey. It confronts why and how women are being denied home birth and raises some challenging issues for current midwifery practice. Using ten women's narratives, this important volume explores why women might want to give birth at home and considers ideas of risk and informed choice in pregnancy and birth. The book includes chapters on communication and language; fear and stress; advocacy and autonomy; fathers' experience of contested place of birth and free birthing. Pointers to best practice are presented whilst the text incorporates women's narratives throughout, making this a practical and relevant read for midwifery students as well as practising midwives and childbirth educators, all of whom have a duty to make home birth a real option for women.

This new edition of a groundbreaking work reflects important developments in the general understanding of, and research into, loss and death. Providing a wealth of information for both experienced and inexperienced midwives, the book covers topics including:

• perinatal and neonatal loss
• miscarriage and termination for foetal abnormality
• death of a mother in third world and first world settings
• difficulties encountered during future childbearing.

Combining an authoritative research-based orientation with a critical yet human approach to this sensitive topic, the book aids midwives in providing effective care and support to those who experience loss. The author draws on relevant and largely research-based literature from a wide range of related disciplines to inform this area, which is only now receiving the attention it has long deserved.

Birthing Autonomy brings some balance to the difficult arguments that arise from debates about home births, and focuses on women's views and their experiences of planning home births. It provides an in-depth exploration of how women make decisions about home births and what aspects matter most to them. Comparing how differently the pros and cons of home births are constructed and contemplated by mothers and by the medical profession, the book looks at how current obstetric thinking and practices can disempower and harm women emotionally and spiritually as well as physically. Written in an accessible style, this book is enlightening for student and practicing midwives and obstetricians, as well as researchers and students of nursing, medical sociology, health studies, gender studies, feminist practitioners and theorists. It will also be invaluable to expectant mothers who want to be more informed about the choices they are facing and the wider context within which their birth options are considered.

Birthing Autonomy brings some balance to the difficult arguments that arise from debates about home births, and focuses on women's views and their experiences of planning home births. It provides an in-depth exploration of how women make decisions about home births and what aspects matter most to them. Comparing how differently the pros and cons of home births are constructed and contemplated by mothers and by the medical profession, the book looks at how current obstetric thinking and practices can disempower and harm women emotionally and spiritually as well as physically. Written in an accessible style, this book is enlightening for student and practicing midwives and obstetricians, as well as researchers and students of nursing, medical sociology, health studies, gender studies, feminist practitioners and theorists. It will also be invaluable to expectant mothers who want to be more informed about the choices they are facing and the wider context within which their birth options are considered.

Covering both the pharmacological and the more controversial non-pharmacological management of pain relief, this comprehensive text, edited by an internationally renowned specialist, provides practical guidance to all involved in this aspect of labour care.

Maternity services and choices for labour and birth are fast evolving. Hypnobirth involves preparation for childbirth using tried and tested hypnotherapy techniques in harmony with midwifery best practices and increasing numbers of women are turning to the technique. Written by two experienced practitioners, this is the first evidence-based practice book for medical professionals on this subject. Chapters include coverage of: What hypnosis is and the history of hypnobirth The power of the mind and the effect of language Relaxation and breathing techniques The neocortex and hormones Birth partners, relationships, women's advocates and primary supporters Throughout the book the authors provide health professionals working in clinical midwifery practice with information and evidence-based findings to support the use of hypnobirth. The book includes case studies, scripts and reflective questions to encourage a deeper understanding of the techniques and issues and to engage and inspire the reader. Hypnobirth is essential reading for midwives, obstetricians, student midwives, doulas and any practitioner involved in preparing and supporting pregnant women for labour.

Drawing on years of midwifery experience of waterbirth, this collection of stories, based on real-life events, illuminates a rewarding way of birth and emphasises the theoretical knowledge, skills, understanding, and resilience needed to practice well. Waterbirth Stories includes chapters on the criteria for use of water in labour and birth, on the different stages of labour, and on some more serious or unusual situations such as shoulder dystocia, postpartum haemorrhage, breech presentation, and other unexpected maternal and neonatal events. Each chapter includes several stories from a midwife's perspective, told in the context of evidence-based guidelines available for this topic. The stories end with learning points to help readers reflect on their own practice. Ideal for student and practising midwives with an interest in waterbirth, this research-informed book is enjoyable, challenging, and informative.

Drawing on years of midwifery experience of waterbirth, this collection of stories, based on real-life events, illuminates a rewarding way of birth and emphasises the theoretical knowledge, skills, understanding, and resilience needed to practice well. Waterbirth Stories includes chapters on the criteria for use of water in labour and birth, on the different stages of labour, and on some more serious or unusual situations such as shoulder dystocia, postpartum haemorrhage, breech presentation, and other unexpected maternal and neonatal events. Each chapter includes several stories from a midwife's perspective, told in the context of evidence-based guidelines available for this topic. The stories end with learning points to help readers reflect on their own practice. Ideal for student and practising midwives with an interest in waterbirth, this research-informed book is enjoyable, challenging, and informative.

The rhetoric of choice is much used in UK health policy and home birth is one of the three options that women are entitled to choose between when deciding where to have their baby. However, many women making this choice run into considerable opposition from the maternity service. Home Birth: the politics of difficult choices focuses on the experiences of women whose choices were opposed by health professionals during their pregnancy journey. It confronts why and how women are being denied home birth and raises some challenging issues for current midwifery practice. Using ten women's narratives, this important volume explores why women might want to give birth at home and considers ideas of risk and informed choice in pregnancy and birth. The book includes chapters on communication and language; fear and stress; advocacy and autonomy; fathers' experience of contested place of birth and free birthing. Pointers to best practice are presented whilst the text incorporates women's narratives throughout, making this a practical and relevant read for midwifery students as well as practising midwives and childbirth educators, all of whom have a duty to make home birth a real option for women.

Childbirth guru Dr Gowri Motha, who practises with Dr Yehudi Gordon - author of Birth and Beyond - shows women how her revolutionary method helps women carry the baby to full term, have less intervention in the birth; feel less pain in labour, and feel happy and in control. The Gentle Birth method is a concise pregnancy programme combining diverse therapies such as 'creative healing' massage, a simple diet, self-hypnosis, reflexology and affirmation techniques The method was created by Dr Gowri Motha as an alternative to conventional obstetric practise, when she became alarmed at the increasing number of women needing intervention during their births. It teaches expectant mothers how to train their bodies and minds in order to reduce or prevent complications during pregnancy and labour. This book outlines the Method, with a month-by-month programme explaining how to rebalance the body and tailor it to the optimum condition for the birthing process. It includes guides to treating problems such as: - back pain - nausea - heartburn - fluid retention - stretch marks The programme offers women a formal framework in which to prepare their bodies and so avoid facing a labour that is unnecessarily long, arduous and traumatic, with significantly lower uptakes of pain relief.

Risk, Age and Pregnancy provides an in-depth case study of the operation of a prenatal genetic screening and testing system. The methodology integrates observational, qualitative interview and survey data. The perspectives of pregnant women, hospital doctors and midwives are explored in depth, as is the communication between women and the hospital doctors who advise them. The book offers insights which are relevant to those concerned with the rapidly growing field of genetic risk management.

As research in neuroscience increasingly points to the unparalleled influence of the first 1000 days of life from conception to two years of age in determining the baby's life trajectory, the need for high-quality early parenting education delivered by knowledgeable and dedicated professionals becomes ever more apparent. This book describes the global aims of early parenting education. It identifies the key areas that research suggests are important: building a relationship with the unborn and newborn baby; preparing for labour and birth; supporting parents' mental health; protecting the couple relationship across the transition to parenthood; and education for special groups such as same-sex couples, women with fear of birth, prisoners, military wives and parents from black and minority ethnic backgrounds. All practitioners providing early parenting programmes - midwives, health visitors, family link workers, children's centre staff and voluntary sector teachers - will gain new ideas for their practice in this book. Students taking midwifery and early childhood courses will find much to support their studies. Ultimately, the book provides inspiration for all those who are committed to the role of parenting education in reducing social inequalities.