The Doula Book: How a Trained Labor Companion Can Help You Have a Shorter, Easier, and Healthier Birth

More and more parents-to-be all over the world are choosing the comfort and reassuring support of birth with a trained labor companion called a "doula." This warm, authoritative, and irreplaceable guide completely updates the authors' earlier book, Mothering the Mother, and adds much new and important research. In addition to basic advice on finding and working with a doula, the authors show how a doula reduces the need for cesarean section, shortens the length of labor, decreases the pain medication required, and enhances bonding and breast feeding. The authors, world-renowned authorities on childbirth with combined experience of over 100 years working with laboring women, have made their book indispensable to every woman who wants the healthiest, safest, and most joyful possible birth experience.

Marshall H. Klaus, MD, internationally known neonatologist, is professor emeritus of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine.

Distinguished pediatrician John H. Kennell, MD, is professor emeritus of pediatrics at Case Western Reserve Medical School.

Psychotherapist Phyllis H. Klaus, MFT, LMSW, is widely known for her practice and teaching of the psychology of pregnancy.