Birth with Confidence (Rhea Dempsey, Boathouse Press)

Rhea Dempsey is a childbirth educator and one of Australia’s foremost thinkers on the topic of childbirth. In Birth with Confidence, Dempsey looks at what she calls the ‘labour-bypass era’, the present birth system in which caesareans and epidurals are favoured over normal physiological birth. She aims to prepare women who want a normal physiological birth by educating them about what they are up against in the current hospital system and helping them become what she calls ‘savvy willing women’ who can avoid the ‘trance of acquiescence’ that often characterises hospital births. Dempsey identifies four distinct pain attitudes in the pregnant woman: the pain-avoiding attitude; the ‘status quo’ attitude; the ‘wait and see’ attitude; and the ‘aspirational but naive’ attitude—and explains how each one affects the possibility of the woman having a normal physiological birth. Birth with Confidence lacks instruction on practical birth skills to cope with pain (and as such would need to be read in conjunction with something like Juju Sundin’s Birth Skills), but is a fantastic reference for anyone starting on the journey towards motherhood who wants a normal physiological birth but is confused by the options available to her or intimidated by the thought of pain in childbirth. 

Kabita Dhara is publisher at Brass Monkey Books

Books+Publishing pre-publication reviews are supported by the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund.

Category: Reviews