My Favourite Pregnancy Books

Before we knew we were pregnant, I already had a few books about pregnancy, childbirth and parenting. When we found out we were pregnant, off I went in search of more books, I was also given a few from friends. It's safe to say I now have a bit of a library on the subject. I've made my way through most and there are only a few that I would say I found particularly useful and will keep, hopefully for the next time.

I loved both Ina May's books, she has the outlook on childbirth that I wanted. To be calm and to trust in your body. If you want to feel calm and confident about birth, these are the books for you. Whenever I felt even slightly anxious I picked up one of these and started reading. There are so many lovely birth stories, not all go smoothly, but the mother is calm in all and all very reassuring.

The Best Friends' Guide is great, you get all the detail you need about pregnancy but in a humurous way. I found a lot of books were very serious about all the things that happen in pregnancy but actually I found that I wanted a funnier, friendlier way to read about these things. I laughed out loud a lot reading this book.

Bringing up Bebe, was part of my parenting selection of books (which may need another post as I work through them). I adored this book and I am tempted to read again now. It is about an American woman's experience of childbirth and baby rearing in Paris. How different the two cultures are in terms of childbirth and parenting. I couldn't put it down I was so fascinated. I would like more books like this, so please if anyone knows of any, let me know. 

HypnoBirthing, I really loved this book. Talk about calming. It is full to the brim of wonderful advice on basically remaining calm. A lot of issues in childbirth tend to come from the mother going into distress, which is why I have worked so hard trying to learn to be calm and relaxed. My birth experience was traumatic but with the help of these techniques I was able to keep calm (the gas & air helped too!). For me, knowledge is calming, so I have done an awful lot of reading, the yoga and hypnobirthing techniques have really complimented that reading. Do not expect to be able to hypnotise yourself through birth with this book - as if! What I took away is a much healthier outlook on childbirth, some great breathing exercises for each stage of pregnancy and again, a confidence. It stresses the importance of not getting stressed! The minute you stress, everything tightens and slows. All your efforts should be on trying to stay calm, this book helps with that. 

You need at least one day-by-day bible, it is really nice to see how baby develops and looks from one day to the next. I kept this next to my bed so every morning I could see what baby was up to and looked like. I really liked the Dr Maggie Blott one but there are lots very similar.

So these books are the selection that I found most helpful to me. Feel free to share if you found any others particularly useful and also if you know of any similar books to Bringing Up Bebe.