Sheila Kitzinger – författare

One new mother in twenty is diagnosed with traumatic stress after childbirth. In Birth Crisis Sheila Kitzinger explores the disempowerment and anxiety experienced by these women. Key topics discussed include: increasing intervention in pregnancy the shift in emphasis from relationships to technology in childbirthhow family, friends and professional caregivers can reach out to traumatized mothershow women can work through stress to understand themselves more deeply and grow in emotional maturityhow care and the medical system needs to be changed.Birth Crisis draws on mothers' voices and real-life experiences to explore the suffering after childbirth which has, until now, been brushed under the carpet. It is a fascinating and useful resource for student and practising midwives, all health professionals, and women and their families who want to learn how to overcome a traumatic birth.

One new mother in twenty is diagnosed with traumatic stress after childbirth. In Birth Crisis Sheila Kitzinger explores the disempowerment and anxiety experienced by these women. Key topics discussed include: increasing intervention in pregnancy the shift in emphasis from relationships to technology in childbirthhow family, friends and professional caregivers can reach out to traumatized mothershow women can work through stress to understand themselves more deeply and grow in emotional maturityhow care and the medical system needs to be changed.Birth Crisis draws on mothers' voices and real-life experiences to explore the suffering after childbirth which has, until now, been brushed under the carpet. It is a fascinating and useful resource for student and practising midwives, all health professionals, and women and their families who want to learn how to overcome a traumatic birth.

Birth and sex are often talked about as if they were contrasting experiences. In fact, they each involve the same rush of hormones in an action drama in which mind and body work in harmony. When a woman is free to follow her instincts and give birth naturally, waves of endorphins surge in the bloodstream with the same energy as in ecstatic lovemaking. Birth and sex mingle to become one in the thrilling, sweet, intense and overwhelming experience of creation. Yet in the Western high-tech birth culture the environment often inhibits the spontaneity of birth, resulting in pain and distress. Pregnancy and birth are de-sexed and treated as medical conditions. Women are turned into objects on which doctors act. In this compelling and controversial new book Sheila Kitzinger explores the complexity and depth of female sexuality during pregnancy, birth, and after the baby comes. She shows what can be done to create an environment in which a woman is able to trust her instincts and be confident in her body. By rediscovering the power and passion in our bodies, we can reclaim the spontaneity and sexual ecstasy of childbirth.

Sheila Kitzinger, passionate campaigner for women's and babies' rights, childbirth educator and author, describes the experiences that have shaped her since childhood and the enormous changes that have taken place over the last 50 years on the subject of birth. Her work as a social anthropologist has taken her round the globe and the knowledge, wisdom and engaging warmth of her books continues to be revelatory and indispensable for thousands of women. This is a rich cross-cultural adventure, a fascinating insight into her world of babies, birth, women, social justice and challenging powerful institutions, a lifetime of dedication to positive social change.

This title includes Foreword by Sheila Kitzinger, Writer, Researcher, Activist and Honorary Professor, Wolfson School of Health Sciences, Thames Valley University. Birth centres are suitable for every woman whose birth is straightforward, which accounts for around 75 per cent of all women. This inspirational guide shows how small scale maternity provision has a profound clinical and organisational advantage over large scale hospital provision, including saving of time and money by reducing intervention rates. It presents the thoughts and feelings of midwives and patients and how both enjoy the humane and compassionate care of the birth centre ethos. The book is invaluable for midwives, obstetricians, doulas, maternity care assistants and maternity service planners and managers. It also provides enlightening information for general practitioners and other health and social care professionals, maternity service users groups and academics with an interest in midwifery and health services. "What birth centres do best is simply providing humane childbirth care. There are no high tech gadgetry, doctors or dramatic stories of childbirth rescues that make it into the media. Yet 'miracles' happen inside their walls every day as women have their babies after normal labours and births. Until now, there have been very few books detailing what happens in birth centres so that women and childbirth professionals can be introduced to an alternative beyond the large hospital model. This book provides a window in on the birth centre model and there are some exciting things to find there about childbirth care in the 21st century." - Denis Walsh, in the Preface. "Denis Walsh has one of the most incisive, analytical and brilliant minds in nursing and midwifery research today. He demonstrates the difference between a quality environment for birth where a woman can create her own 'nest', and a technocratic, bureaucratically controlled, highly medicalised and risk-oriented birth culture dominated by the clock, which is most women's experience today." - Sheila Kitzinger, in the Foreword.