I enjoyed reading Painless Childbirth by Giuditta Tornetta, she is a birth doula and also uses hypnosis with her clients. It was a positive, uplifting book about pregnancy and birth. It is always wonderful to have a book showing that birth can be comfortable and enjoyable.
Reasons I liked this book:
It shows that birth can be comfortable and enjoyable. There are some good birth stories included, under many different circumstances, home birth, hospital births, induced births, etc. These stories demonstrate how mom’s beliefs can create their reality.
The book helps moms see how they can be empowered by educating themselves and making choices that are best for them and their baby! Birth is not a one size fits all kind of situation. Learn what your choices are, trust your body and baby and you can be empowered.
The only thing that would make me hesitant to say every mom should read the book, is that it is fairly “new-agey”. Personally, I am pretty open minded, so this didn’t bother me. I just took what I liked and dismissed what didn’t fit into my beliefs. For instance, Giuditta divided the book into 10 months, and connected the chakras to the different months of pregnancy. I found that interesting, but others might be turned off by that.
Some moms are very hesitant to try hypnosis for childbirth, because they worry it won’t fit into their belief structure. One thing I like about Hypnobabies is that it is very main stream and can fit into anyone’s beliefs. It isn’t new-agey at all. I would worry that some of these moms, if they started to read this book would straight away assume that hypnosis is only for new-agey people.
In conclusion I would let moms know if they are open to new and different ideas, then this is a great book for them to read in preparation for birth. It will give them some tools and ideas to help them prepare for birth and parenting. I would add that they most likely will need more than just this book for preparation. If they want more tools, scripts, childbirth information, etc. Hypnobabies would give them these things.
