Birth

Written by Ibone Olza, MD, PhD, mother, perinatal psychiatrist and cofounder of El Parto es Nuestro (Birth is Ours), and now translated to English by Sinéad Byrne.
Foreword by Soo Downe

Birth isn’t a medical manual. It’s an essay on the most vital experience a woman can go through, from her perspective and that of her child. Not long ago, giving birth was considered a mechanical process that only surgery could fix if the going got tough. Mothers’ bodies were viewed through the lens of imperfection and the birth canal was a dangerous place where it was easy to die from suffocation. The rich and profound nature of birth was not appreciated from a psychological perspective, nor was the immense power of this unparalleled dimension of existence.
But everything has changed, completely. In her bestselling book, Olza seeks to create an understanding of childbirth in terms of psychology and neuroscience - bringing together real experiences of labour with the help of psychological insights, neuroendocrinology and neuroimaging.

“This new book takes a refreshingly different tack. For the most part, Ibone Olza explains and celebrates the way in which labour and birth can positively affect those experiencing it. Her analysis presents childbirth as both a psychological and physical experience that, where experienced optimally, is life-changing in a very profound sense.
This book provides the opportunity to begin to celebrate the kind of labour and birth that happens, or should happen, every day, to hundreds of thousands of women, childbearing people, and babies, all around the world. It also recognises that those providing maternity care are also people with emotional and psychological lives, and that these should also be safeguarded, through respectful supportive management and interpersonal relationships.”
Soo Downe