Ina May Gaskin has been a longtime teacher of midwifery and is the author of ‘Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth,’‘Spiritual Midwifery,’ and ‘Birth Matters,’ among other titles. She is recognized as an authority on mother-led birth who caters to what the mother needs to have a positive and healthy birth. To get a better understanding of giving birth without fear, we recommend reading her books on Childbirth and Breastfeeding! The strongest thing I took from this reading, is that I don't have to be an angry birthing mother-to-be. I can be loving and gentle with my partner. As Ina May says "What put the baby in there, can bring the baby out." So, being loving and even 'smoochy' with your partner (I personally didn't quite make it to the smoochy stage in my 8 hours of birthing) can aid the process. She illuminated the fact that not all birthing stories are challenging or unpleasant and that some people genuinely (they're not lying) ENJOY birthing. This book is essentially a collection of stories from the 70s? about births. There's greater romance than I'm telling here, because the book tells the story also of how this collective of midwives grew from Ina May to a raft of 'disciples' who lived in housebuses in a large community together and served the greater community. My purpose for reading this book is to brush up on childbirth and strategies to support my partner during her pregnancy and labor. For that, I got less out of this book than I did with Ina May's other book, "Ina May's Guide to Childbirth".

Although the central theme of the book is midwifery, in essence, it's just this really, really amazing book that makes you feel incredible and powerful about being a woman. I think there needs to be a lot more of that in the world today. Woman are brought up to feel bad about being a woman. We're taught that our bodies are ugly and unhealthy and that they will turn on us. We're taught that our feminine energy is somehow wrong and inappropriate. We need to learn to rejoice in our bodies and our femininity and to claim our power as women... and I think this book, through an explanation of the ideas that constitute what Ina May Gaskin calls "spiritual midwifery" and a plethora of positive, joyful birthing stories, helps one to do just that. I strongly recommend that EVERY woman read this one! In addition to the stroll down memory lane, we also get a large amount of personal essays and the different experiences from women and men regarding the labors with their children in the hands of the midwives. They actually started sounding redundant so I skimmed past many of them. According to Carol Lorente (1995), the work of Gaskin and the midwives might not have had the impact it did, if it hadn't been for the publication of her book Spiritual Midwifery (1977): This has been, and still is, a very important book for pregnancy. Ina May's desire to change the way we think about birth is admirable. It suggests a privilege while simultaneously passing judgement on those that may need to (for whatever reason) seek assistance at one point or another in their life. Automatically creating a division of people.All-Fours Maneuver for Reducing Shoulder Dystocia During Labor, The Journal of Reproductive Medicine, May, 1998. A study of home births assisted by the midwives of The Farm (Durand 1992) looked at the outcomes of 1,707 women who received care in rural Tennessee between 1971 and 1989. These births were compared to outcomes of over 14,000 physician-attended hospital births (including those typically labelled as high risk) in 1980. Comparing perinatal deaths, labor complications, and use of assisted delivery, the study found that "under certain circumstances (low risk pregnancies), home births attended by lay midwives can be accomplished as safely as, and with less intervention than, physician-attended hospital deliveries.". [8] Significance of her work [ edit ] Gaskin was born to an Iowa Protestant family ( Methodist on one side, Presbyterian on the other). Her father, Talford Middleton, was raised on a large Iowa farm, which was lost to a bank not long after his father's accidental death in 1926. Her mother, Ruth Stinson Middleton, was a home economics teacher, who taught in various small towns within a forty-mile radius of Marshalltown, Iowa. Both parents were college graduates, who placed great importance on higher education. In the 1960s, Ina May gave birth to her first child in which the physician used obstetrical forceps. The experience was so unpleasant that she searched for a better form of childbirth. Before The Farm was established, her husband Stephen was leading a speaking tour caravan in 1971, based on his philosophical seminars in San Francisco. It was for the first time on this tour that she helped a woman in childbirth. [3] On March 16, as the caravan was traveling through Nebraska, Ina May went into labor. The baby, whom they named Christian, was born prematurely by 8 weeks and died the next day. She was not allowed to keep the baby, and law enforcement made her bury the child in Nebraska. [4] Her own personal experiences fueled her interest into midwifery and safe childbirth. The Farm Midwifery Center [ edit ] Considered a seminal work, it presented pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding from a fresh, natural and spiritual perspective, rather than the standard clinical viewpoint. In homebirth and midwifery circles, it made her a household name, and a widely respected teacher and writer." [9]

Top 6 Books of 2011 | International Planned Parenthood Federation/Western Hemisphere Region". Archived from the original on 2018-04-18 . Retrieved 2018-04-17. I do appreciate that Ina May Gaskin has helped improve the way childbirth can happen in America. The ongoing theme that childbirth takes the time it takes is extremely resonant to me, after a doctor rushed my first birth (she complained so I could hear it twice that my 20-hour labor, precisely on my due date, was making her late for other appointments, before deciding I "needed" a vacuum extraction). And as a woman-centered story of Vietnam-era counter-culture, I suspect I could enjoy this book immensely.In 2013, she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame. [3] Bibliography [ edit ] Books [ edit ] Since the early 1980s, she has been an internationally known speaker on maternity care independently and for the Midwives Alliance of North America (MANA), [1] lecturing throughout the world to midwives, physicians, doulas, expectant parents and health policy-makers. She has spoken at medical and midwifery schools in several countries and at both the Starwood Festival and the WinterStar Symposium, discussing the history and importance of midwifery. Gaskin, Ina May (2009). Ina May's Guide to Breastfeeding. UK: Pinter & Martin. ISBN 9781905177332. OCLC 768809453. Laura found this first edition (1975) at the flea market next door. How could we turn this down? It's the first hand account - told by the mothers and fathers and midwives - of about 200 of the 372 births (thus far) on a giant culty hippie baby making farm in Tennessee. Followed by instructions for prenatal and neonatal care for parents and midwives. The hippie slang is unreal. A good example: Gaskin, Ina May (2015). Birth Matters: A Midwife's Manifesta. New York: Seven Stories Press. ISBN 9781583229279.

Solar power pioneer Huang Ming wins 'alternative Nobel' ". BBC News. 29 September 2011 . Retrieved 19 September 2016. The "spiritual" aspect I was a bit surprised by. Any familiarity with Ina May and "The Farm" definitely gets you plugged into the hippy vibe especially since their caravan and commune rose in the 60s and 70s. But, the mention of spirituality is also in reference to a more traditional belief in god. Surprisingly, Ina May's husband was a minister and the leader of the commune. They and the rest of the people on "The Farm" strongly believed in god, mentioning praying, the miracles of god, and the like. I don't recall any specifics (ex, Jesus isn't mentioned) so it comes across as more of a general belief but it definitely makes its presence in the read. Induced and Seduced: The Dangers of Cytotec. in Mothering, July-August, 2001. Retrieved: 2006-08-26. When many Americans think about giving birth, the main thing they think about is the pain involved. The fear and anxiety that the anticipation of pain that childbirth can bring often makes the last weeks of pregnancy, as well as the birth itself, a negative experience for many women. However, Ina May Gaskin believes giving birth without fear can make the entire experience of labor and birth a more positive one. Ina May Gaskin is one of the foremost midwives in the U.S. Her ideas about the fear of giving birth have to lead to a drastic change in the way many women and their caregivers or partners approach to birth, so that fear isn’t the primary feeling that accompanies it. Tips To Experience Less Fear During Labor and Birth Her maternal grandparents ran a Presbyterian orphanage in Farmington, Missouri, a small town in the Ozarks. Her grandmother, Ina May Beard Stinson, directed the orphanage for many years after her pastor husband's death. She was an avid member of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and a great admirer of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Jane Addams. Gaskin's paternal grandparents were all farmers. Adam Leslie Middleton, her grandfather, traveled and worked with farmers from Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas in cooperative grain marketing, organizing communities, as well as larger outlets in Chicago and other large cities, to establish local cooperative grain elevators. His work as an organizer took him to Canada to work with wheat growers, and to Washington, D. C., on the invitation of the Secretary of Agriculture under President Warren G. Harding, Henry C. Wallace, father of Henry A. Wallace, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Secretary of Agriculture.A Summary of Articles Published in English about Misoprostol (Cytotec) for Cervical Ripening or Induction of Labor, 2005-09-05 Retrieved: 2010-01-22. She makes a lot of pronouncements such as: We have a very low incidence of post partum depression here on the Farm. We've never circumcised a male baby on the Farm. While the first half of the book is accessible to everyone, the second half of the book reads more like a how-to manual for midwives and seems less relevant to anyone not interested in being a professional midwife or doula. It is interesting though and is basically a medical manual of the woman's body, the baby, and goes into the nitty-gritty medical details of it all.