Letting Go. (Stand and Deliver - Emma Mahony)

Member Name: katestuartuk

Product:	Stand and Deliver - Emma Mahony
Date:	19/10/07 (96 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Amazingly inspiring...

Disadvantages: Not a single one!

Stand and Deliver
(And Other Brilliant Ways to Give Birth)

By

Emma Mahony

Published by Thorsons

Introduction

As some of you may know I gave birth to my first child, a little girl, on the 9th of October (a whole 10 days ago, doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun?!) One of the things I found very helpful in the run up to the birth was reading books that were filled with positive birth stories, and this is one of them. There are so many negative stories to be had about how horribly wrong the whole thing can go – even in the popular pregnancy magazines, that it is easy to be overwhelmed by all the negative possibilities, but this book was one that filled me with hope that my birth experience had so much more potential to be positive than negative.

The Book

Written for women who are about to give birth, this is a book which is laid out in a very simple way, using simple language and with stories from women who have had positive experiences of birth that are woven through it’s pages like gold leaf.
Set out into three chapters, aptly named First Stage, Second Stage and Third Stage, each chapter covers different aspects of the birth process.
The book looks first at the importance of us pregnant women reviewing how we approach our pregnancy and birth in the sense that we have, as a society, come to view the act of giving birth as a medical experience. Which is funny because the act of making the baby isn’t (unless you have IVF) a medical experience. As a reader, you are encouraged to realise that women have been birthing for as long as man has walked the earth, and we are, quite clearly, designed for this amazing and life changing act of bringing a new little life into the world.
In this first chapter, we are encouraged to look at how and what we think about the impending birth, as our mental attitude to the whole affair carries so much weight in how things will actually go – if we learn to believe in our strength and ability to do the job, and if we can learn to let go of our minds in order to let our bodies do their job, then we are halfway to a positive birth experience. We can also inspire those around us, health professionals, midwives, partners, to believe in us too, and that confidence can be enough to see you through the hardest of labours.

The second chapter of the book explores other women’s birthing stories and covers all sorts of different types of birth, right through from water births (which is what I had), C-sections, Breech, twins, and induction all the way through to standing births and yoga births. Some of the stories are very inspiring and what I got from them is that it’s good to have a very clear idea of what you do and don’t want during your labour and birth, but that it’s equally important to be prepared for alternatives, and to keep your mindset calm and focused however things turn out. This helped me a lot as I was booked for a home birth, but ended up staying in hospital as I was 18 days overdue. The most important thing about this section is that the stories are all positive ones. If I could give pregnant women the world over one single piece of advise to carry with them through the long hard journey of their pregnancy and labour, it would be to become selectively deaf in regards to negative birth stories. People, women and men, seem always so eager to share the horrid things that have happened to them whilst birthing, and I found that people were very keen to tell me how much it hurt, how I’d be desperate for drugs, how I would probably find it difficult to cope with the pain. I’ll tell you all about my Eva’s birth in a separate review, but I can tell you this book was one which made a big difference to my feelings and attitudes to her birth in the months and days before B-Day!

The third chapter of this book gives a sort of countdown to the birth, asking you to think about where you want to give birth, how to write your birth plan in order to communicate your wishes to medical personnel, as well as a fantastic section on identifying whether or not you’re actually in labour (I read this section a lot, but found that when labour started, I really did know it was happening without having to cross reference it!!)



My Opinion

I loved this book and can heartily recommend it to anyone who is going to be involved in a birth – whether you’re the mum to be or a partner or a birthing partner, this is a great book full of wonderful stuff. I found there were phrases in this book that I repeated to myself in the run up to my labour that sort of became little mantras – one quote in particular I’m sure many women would find useful:

“To birth well I must give myself fully to the task but I must also let go and let it happen by itself. Women who birth well control their surrender to the process. Birth is learning to control surrender.”

Throughout my labour I remembered this and would say to myself “let go, let go” and I really found it helped. I supposed everyone that reads this will get something different from it, but this was what I found most helpful. A definite must-read for anyone wanting to make their birth experience the best that it can be.

Costs and Other Stuff

I have this on loan from my sister, but if you want to buy it, it costs £7.99 and you can pick it up on sites like Amazon or good bookshops will order it for you if they don’t have it in stock.

ISBN 0007153996

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Eva Rose was born at 05.42 on 09/10/07 weighing 7lb 6oz. She was born in a hospital birthing pool, in a very calm environment, with her Daddy and her Aunty Mia helping me to get through the labour with no drugs, intervention, inducement or even gas and air. Review to follow!

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Thank you for reading and happy birthing! Kate x

Summary: A highly recommended read for anyone about to give birth.