Painless Childbirth: An Empowering Journey Through Pregnancy and Birth Book

This ranks pretty high on the woo-woo scale, and Giuditta Tornetta borrows freely from The Secret, Byron Katie's The Work, 12-step programs, and probably a bunch of other New Agey gurus that I am not identifying (Deepak Chopra, Oprah Winfrey, ???), but the premises in it concerning having a positive attitude towards childbirth and nurturing your body, spirit, and unborn child are all worthwhile. The book is divided into chapters corresponding to the 9 months of pregnancy, the 9 chakras (7 in the body, plus two higher chakras that reside outside the body), and the 9 Basic Human Rights. It is an interesting framework from which to approach pregnancy, and you could read it one chapter per month and focus on the chakra/human right that corresponds to your baby's stage of development in that month if you wanted to. If you are not into Higher Powers, God as a She, spirit children who appear to you in dreams, or "hugging your baby out" (this one gets on my nerves - hugs draw a person in. Babies are going OUT of the body. You can breathe them out, let them drop out on their own, squeeze them out, a la toothpaste from a tube, or push them out, a la orange push-up popsicles, but you don't hug them out. Gaaah!), this isn't the book for you. If you like to believe that your child specially chose your family, comes to earth to make Spirit manifest, and has the wisdom of the ages contained within its being, and that EVERYTHING is always PERFECT, this book will be right up your alley.