So good I read it TWICE! And now my fiance is reading it! Thank you. It’s a brilliant book that all mums to be should read!” I really like it because it’s about how to love and respect your body. My favourite bit is about making a period kit. I’ve already asked my mum to put in a treat and a special note for when I get my first period.” The Positive Birth Company is on a mission to support you from the moment you start thinking about planning for a baby, to the day they eventually go to school. We do this through life-changing online courses, incredible online communities and access to some of the best minds in the fields of birth, health and psychology. Our resources are affordable and accessible to all, no matter where you are or how busy your life is. Our hypnobirthing classes are designed to be a fully comprehensive antenatal course, so there is no need for you to attend any others unless you wish to. We run both in person courses in various locations across the UK and online Zoom courses which you can attend from the comfort of your own home.

We are on a mission to show people everywhere that birth can be better. And not just better, but amazing!

Milli Hill is a bestselling non-fiction author, freelance journalist, feminist, creative psychotherapist, mum of three, and author of the popular blog The Mule. These beautifully illustrated cards bring your birth plan to life. Each card features an icon on one side and a clear explanation of the icon on the other. With guidance on choosing period products, charting your cycles and preparing a first period kit, alongside profiles of ‘cycle superstars’ such as Amika George who are working to end period poverty, this book is the complete guide to getting your period. The Positive Birth Book is like everything I ever googled pre-birth rolled into a friendly, warm format and is full-to-bursting with USEFUL information. For example, I am rhesus negative and to be honest I never really understood what that meant, I just did what I was told! This book explains it so well. It is also refreshing to read something positive about all types of birth – I didn’t feel like I was being preached to. I wish I had read this book during my pregnancies!”

A timely and necessary book to bring periods out of the shadows and much needed period eduction into the spotlight” There is more information available on giving birth and raising children than ever before. With each new scientific advance or fad, more questions arise: Fertility issues? Screening tests? Antenatal classes, hypnobirthing or yoga? Home, hospital or birth centre? Breast or bottle, or both? Attachment parenting or parent-led routine? Co-sleeping or their own room? Spoon-feeding or baby-led weaning? To vaccinate, or not? Researching any or all of these topics can be time-consuming and frustrating, as good information and support sits alongside that provided by ‘experts’ or those with vested interests keen to prey on our anxieties and relieve us of our cash. Contradictory articles in the press, one-sided, heavily edited TV shows and social media commentary muddy the waters even further. The ones I didn’t give are for 1) the author is extremely bias towards natural unmediated home birth, which is for sure not for everyone! For instance, I will be Relaxed to have a hospital birth and I will be extremely stressed if I had to give birth at home! And it is the case for all other birth options. So it is not one size fits all. Getting your first period can be exciting – but there are a lot of questions you might be too embarrassed to ask. Like how much will I bleed? Does it hurt? How can I prepare? And what’s the point of a period anyway?

I found that for a book that was supposed to be positive about all types of birth it was very negative about the kind I am likely to have. THIS is the book I wish I had been gifted as a child! A must-have for every girl entering womanhood, and as crucial as any biology textbook for every boy too, My Period is set to help annihilate the stigma, shame and medical negligences linked to our periods, and help everyone understand on a truthful, honest and kind level, the physical, factual happenings of what happens to our female bodies every month, for so many decades of our lives.” If you have a high risk pregnancy she encourages you to push for a home birth with an independent midwife but you are expected to be traumatised by any intervention and the focus is on how to refuse it. Includes a brand new chapter: What Women Want. What Women Need. What Women Are. Praise for Give Birth Like a Feminist Whatever a positive birth means to you, this book will make you believe you can do it. It’s the book I wish I had read before I had my children!” Green Parent Magazine

Hypnobirthing is an evidence-based approach to birth that seeks to empower women and birthing people with knowledge, practical tools and support, enabling them to have a positive birth experience, however they choose to bring their baby into the world. New section on your rights in pregnancy and birth by Bashi Hazard of the Human Rights in Childbirth International Lawyers Network While the author’s intent seems to be to empower women to make choices, she is quite distrusting of the medical profession and her approach is more likely to create fear among pregnant women of doctors rather than encourage them to trust in their knowledge and expertise when working with them. She talks often of how women traditionally gave birth at home without doctors intervening and the nostalgia with which she talks about the past suggests she thinks giving birth was ‘better’ then because it was more ‘natural’. She seems to conveniently forget that before modern medicine, women and children were more likely to die in childbirth than today in large part because medical care including facilities and research were not as good then as they are today.A rallying cry for women everywhere…everyone should read this book and look at childbirth through a feminist lens.” So very recently, I took an all-day intensive birthing course. It covered topics such as the anatomy of a pregnant woman, what to expect during the three phases of labor, pain relief options, understanding interventions, home births vs hospital births, cesareans, ways to increase oxytocin levels, benefits of skin-to-skin, breastfeeding, and more. It was extremely informative and I walked out of this class feeling completely empowered. A zip file with all 98 icons individually as jpg files, which you can drop into Word documents, etc. So keeping in mind that it is basically a glorious, useful, practical, indispensable beginning birth book, and that I have many, MANY good things to say, I'll just drop my minor criticisms here:

Please note that the icons are for your private use only and may not be shared, sold or reproduced without written permission from the publisher Pinter & Martin.

Just so happened that I had to be induced as well because my baby decided it was to comfy inside me and wouldn't come out. To Milli Hill this is the worst thing that could ever happen. Oh no! Intervention! I should have waited and let baby come on its own! (Even though my baby was 9lbs when born, I don't even want to think about the possible weight if I'd have waited!) There are so many reasons for being induced when your overdue but Milli Hill says it's best to let nature takes it course. She made me really anxious about the other possible interventions I'd need. That I'd probably have to have a cesararian, and not be able to get through without strong pain relief. Well guess what! I didn't have a cesararian and I managed on gas and air so it shows what Ms Hill knows. As a journalist since 2013 she has written for many publications including the Telegraph, Mail, Guardian, Independent, ipaper and Mother&Baby, and has appeared on BBC Radio 2, BBC 5 Live, talkradio, LBC and many leading podcasts. She is a member of the advisory group for Sex Matters and lives in Somerset with her partner and three children. I found the first sections interesting and informative: birth rights, birth plans, the amazing idea of the visual birth plan (which I've now used!), and I appreciated she included birth plans and experieces for different kind of people and differend kind of births. But after that, when it actually came to talk in depth about the birth choices she was describing before... well.