Birthy Book Club: How to Have a Baby by Natalie Meddings

“As someone clever said, if you want to do something, find someone who’s done it and copy them. How to Have a Baby is filled with such someones - women just like you, with bodies just like yours. This is their wisdom.”

- Natalie Meddings

why i read it:

As someone who adores consuming information about pregnancy, birth and postpartum I’m a huge fan of the fact that there is an abundance of information available out there. As a birth educator, I like digesting the research and the evidence and the statistics. But, when I take myself back to being pregnant myself, I remember feeling somewhat overwhelmed by not only the quantity of information out there, but by the medical jargon and the descriptions of certain hormones I’d never before heard about and all the other “stuff” this information provided.

How to Have A Baby is not simply another birth book describing what you can expect, or how you can make it better, or what you need to know. It’s a collection of mother gathered wisdom, tips, experiences, advice and recipes written by mothers for mothers.

When reading it, I genuinely felt like I was transported to place of warm community. I found a village of parents who had the answers to the questions I had!

On top of this, it is visually a bloody gorgeous book with beautiful images sprinkled throughout.

what i thought about this book

In How to Have a Baby, Natalie Meddings takes you on a journey through what we, as newly pregnant parents, think about, worry about and are apprehensive about and she has a way of being wonderfully reassuring in her writing.

Natalie helps you reconnect with your body and intuition when carrying your baby and preparing for birth.

She provides some great advice on how to prepare as your guess date looms, how to maintain confidence and patience in waiting for your baby in small, easy to digest and (most importantly) enjoyable, chunks.

Natalie shares her wisdom as a mother and a doula when covering different aspects of birth and shares the real lived experiences of other women in their journey to parenthood.

She shares recipes for meals to batch cook and freeze in preparation for postpartum life. She shares cake recipes for an afternoon treat each new parent should indulge in every afternoon. Best of all, she gives these recipes for you to pass on to others to make and cook for you!

Natalie makes you feel like carrying and birthing a baby are wonderous experiences which we deserve to enjoy and take pride in, whilst also requiring space to process and recover from. She communicates just how important these things are, and empowers readers to take this time for themselves.

conclusion

This book is one that I share with all of the expectant parents I work with and will continue to do for the rest of my career. I heavily recommend that you buy it, read it and share it with all of your pregnant pals.

I could not recommend it more for it’s content, and if you will only read one book whilst pregnant, please make it be this one.

It also looks bloody gorgeous on your shelf!