Childbirth Without Fear : The Principles and Practice of Natural Childbirth

In an age when normal birth can still be overtaken by obstetrics, Grantly Dick-Read's philosophy is still as fresh and relevant as it was when he originally wrote this book. He unpicks the root causes of women's fears and anxiety about pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding with overwhelming heart and empathy. As one of the most influential birthing books of all time, Childbirth Without Fear is essential reading for all parents-to-be, childbirth educators, midwives and obstetricians!

This definitive reissue includes the full text of the fourth edition, the last completed by Grantly Dick-Read before his death in 1959, and The Autobiography of Grantly Dick-Read, compiled from his writings.

With a foreword by Ina May Gaskin.

Born in Britain in 1890, Grantly Dick-Read studied at Cambridge and at the London Hospital. He soon realised that there was something inherently wrong with the traditional methods of delivering babies, with their emphasis on intervention and the extensive use of anaesthetics. The publication of Childbirth without Fear caused widespread controversy, but, encouraged by many women who had given birth using the 'Dick-Read method',

Grantly Dick-Read dedicated his life to promoting natural childbirth. His writings inspired advocators of natural childbirth such as Janet Balaskas, Yehudi Gordon, Michel Odent, Ina May Gaskin and Sheila Kitzinger, and seem even more relevant today than when they were first published.

In 1948 he moved to South Africa, where he continued practising and teaching. In 1954 he conducted an extensive tour investigating childbirth practices of African tribes, which he described in his book No Time for Fear. Grantly Dick-Read died back home in England in 1959.

"Pioneers pass on unheard and unlamented until the trail they blazed is followed by a few who have believed. At the end they are discovered where their life's work is finished, mourned only by the wild flowers of the wilderness they loved." Grantly Dick-Read

Ina May Gaskin, MA, CPM, PhD (Hon.) is founder and director of the Farm Midwifery Center, located near Summertown, Tennessee. Founded in 1971, by 2011, the Farm Midwifery Center had handled approximately 3000 births, with remarkably good outcomes. Ms. Gaskin herself has attended more than 1200 births.

She is author of Spiritual Midwifery, now in its fourth edition. For twenty-two years she published Birth Gazette, a quarterly covering health care, childbirth and midwifery issues. Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth was published in 2003 and has been translated into Italian, Slovenian, German, and French. Ina May’s Guide to Breastfeeding was published in 2009 and Birth Matters: A Midwife’s Manifesta , was published in 2011.

She has lectured all over the world at midwifery conferences and at medical schools, both to students and to faculty. She was President of Midwives’ Alliance of North America from 1996 to 2002. In 1997, she received the ASPO/Lamaze Irwin Chabon Award and the Tennessee Perinatal Association Recognition Award. In 2003 she was chosen as Visiting Fellow of Morse College, Yale University. In 2009, she was conferredw with the title of Honorary Doctor by the Faculty of Health and Human Sciences of Thames Valley University in London, England. In 2011, she was chosen as one of four recipients of the Right Livelihood Award (also known as the Alternative Nobel Prize), given in an award ceremony before the Swedish Parliament in Stockholm.

Ms. Gaskin has lectured widely to midwives and physicians throughout the world. Her promotion of a low-intervention but extremely effective method for dealing with one of the most-feared birth complications, shoulder dystocia, has resulted in that method being adopted by a growing number of practitioners. The Gaskin maneuver is the first obstetrical procedure to be named for a midwife. Her statistics for breech deliveries and her teaching video on the subject have helped to spark a reappraisal of the policy of automatically performing cesarean section for all breech babies. As the occurrence of vaginal breech births has declined over the last 40 years, the knowledge and skill required for such births have come close to extinction. Ms. Gaskin’s center is noted for its low rates of intervention, morbidity and mortality despite the inclusion of many vaginally delivered breeches, twin and grand multiparas. Their statistics were published in “The Safety of Home Birth: The Farm Study,” authored by A. Mark Durand, American Journal of Public Health , March, 1992, Vol. 82, 450-452. 

Her website is at www.inamay.com