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Book Recommendations

Dec 16, 2023

My absolute go-to pregnancy book is: “How to Have a Baby” by experienced Doula Natalie Meddings, which is a collection of incredible mother-guided wisdom, and honestly just like having a big Doula hug. It’s a kind of coffee table book you can just pick up and flick through - with beautiful images and so many incredible insights. Did you know that eating 6-8 dates per day from 37 weeks increases your likelihood of going into spontaneous labour and decreases the time of labour by around seven hours?! (p.32).

I’m also a big fan of “Ina May's Guide to Childbirth”, which has comforted many of my pregnant clients carrying fear about birth. The positive birth stories at the start of the book really set the stage for the empowerment Gaskin’s shares in this text, along with plenty of evidence based information on physiological birth.

When it comes to expectations of what motherhood is really like, I love Naomi Stadlen’s “What Mothers Do”. In this book, Stadlen shares stories from new mother’s groups to give readers a true understanding of what mothering involves, as well as it’s hugely important role not only in society but humanity as a whole.

For Breastfeeding, there are numerous amazing websites such as The Association of Breastfeeding Mothers and La Leche League (who also have free helplines). I also can’t emphasise enough the benefit of breastfeeding support/hiring a lactation consultant after the birth to help on your breastfeeding journey. For those concerned about milk production, I highly recommend Making More Milk and The Contented Calf Cookbook.

I really enjoy the exposure to new parenting books whenever I visit a new family postnatally and see what friends/family have given them from their own libraries. My absolute favourite is “Beginning Well: Care for the Child from Birth to Age Three, Empathy from the Very Beginning” which shares some boggling evidence based insights on child-raising, development and attachment parenting. We may be used to a faster pace of life prior to parenting and want our children to be more independent so that we can return to this, however, the authors consider the needs of babies/young children, and present them to us in an understandable way so that we can be more patient and attuned as caregivers.

For sleep, I highly recommend the gentle sleep advice of Elizabeth Pantley and her bestseller: “"The No-Cry Sleep Solution”. This book shares the nature of infant sleep and has a multitude of tips, tricks and techniques to help with this. If you are struggling with sleep, I have recently completed OCN level 3 Gentle Sleep Educator training and would be happy to support you with this.

Please find my full reading list below. It is extensive, however, I hope this means there’s a book in there for everyone: