Product Description

What do a Dutch university lecturer, a US Marine, a Scottish artist, and an English engineer have in common? They have all experienced the transformative power of home birth, and their stories - and many others - are told in this groundbreaking book. As hospital-based maternity services become increasingly medicalised, more and more parents are deciding that birth belongs in the home. For many women, this choice may be an easy one, but for their partners, home birth raises some serious questions. For the first time, The Father's Home Birth Handbook provides a resource aimed specifically at exploring men's hopes and fears around home birth. Thorough research, balanced discussion, and dozens of home birth stories from real men all over the world make this book essential reading for all fathers-to-be and the professionals who support them. Find out why Annalisa Barbieri of The Independent calls The Father's Home Birth Handbook 'a quite brilliant book'.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #95012 in Books
• Published on: 2008-11-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

Review
This handbook is essential reading. --The Green Parent magazine, February 2009

The Father's Home Birth Handbook successfully bridges continents, cultures, and even genders. This book is well written and enjoyable, thorough and highly relevant. It is an important read for all parents, no matter where they may think they want to give birth. --Patrick Houser, author of the Fathers-to-Be Handbook

It's just the book we all need at the moment. Thank you for this book! --Karen Webster, CPM, LM, founder of WomanWise Midwifery and member of the Board of the Foundation for the Advancement of Midwifery (FAM)

The Father's Home Birth Handbook successfully bridges continents, cultures, and even genders. This book is well written and enjoyable, thorough and highly relevant. It is an important read for all parents, no matter where they may think they want to give birth. --Patrick Houser, author of the Fathers-to-Be Handbook

It's just the book we all need at the moment. Thank you for this book! --Karen Webster, CPM, LM, founder of WomanWise Midwifery and member of the Board of the Foundation for the Advancement of Midwifery (FAM)

About the Author
Leah Hazard grew up in the United States and graduated from Harvard University before moving to the United Kingdom to pursue a career in journalism and the arts. The birth of her first daughter in 2003 inspired Leah to retrain as a doula, providing birth support to families in homes and hospitals across Central Scotland. In 2006, Leah experienced the joyful birth of her second daughter at home. Since then, she has written articles on birth and parenting for a number of national and international publications, including Midwifery Today, Midwifery Matters, Birth and Beyond, and The Mother magazine.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The Prologue:

When I first had the idea for this book, I joked to my friends that the title would be, She wants to do WHAT?!: a home birth guide for fathers. In the course of my work with pregnant women and their partners, I've met a handful of men who have been enthusiastic about the potential benefits and joys of home birth. However, I've met far more men who have responded to their partners' home birth wishes with a mixture of shock, cynicism, and fear. On the face of it, these men have been kind, supportive, and intelligent, with a genuine concern for the wellbeing of their partners and babies. They have expressed willingness to rub backs for hours on end, to do battle with scalpel-happy obstetricians, and to tolerate labour-induced obscenities with a calm smile, but somehow, the idea of birthing at home has been a step too far for these fathers-to-be. Why?

Far from being domineering ogres who just want to see wifey tucked `safely' away in a hospital, these loving fathers have simply had very little access to accurate, impartial information about the safety of home births vs. hospital births. What's more, whereas women often hear stories from female friends and relatives who have given birth in a variety of locations and situations, men are a bit less likely to sit down in the office/bar/clubhouse to swap birth stories. What they know, by and large, is what they've seen on TV or in the movies, or what they've heard from their mates - which, with all due respect to Hollywood and to mates around the world, is not always accurate or impartial. Men worry about what their co-workers will think if they `let' their partner have a home birth, they worry about the hassle they'll get from their well-meaning mothers (most of whom gave birth in the medically interventionist heyday of the 1960s and 1970s), and they worry about the smell, the mess, and the sheer emotional and physical intensity of birth at home. Perhaps more than anything, they worry about the safety of birth without the tricks and tools of modern technology. Fathers' fears and concerns have been paid scant attention by the mainstream media, but at a time when our hospital-based maternity services are in a time of crisis, men need to be informed and encouraged if home birth is ever going to be a real option for women.

The aim of this book is not to harangue you into supporting home birth. Admittedly, birthing at home will never appeal to all of the people, all of the time, nor is it clinically advisable in certain circumstances. Different countries will also have their own regulations and recommendations surrounding home birth; however, I believe that the freedom to choose your child's place of birth is a universal human right that transcends political and medical trends. If you and your partner do choose to welcome your baby into your own home, then this book will hopefully provide you with some of the tools you need to make that happen, wherever you may be.

But don't take it from me. I'm just one person with her own inevitable biases and back-story, and - as you may have guessed from my name - I am not a father. In addition to presenting some information that you might find useful as you make your birth choices, I also have the pleasure of introducing you to the 27 fathers who have been kind enough to contribute their stories to this book. These home-birthing dads range in age from 23 to 53; they hail from the UK, the US, New Zealand, Finland, and the Netherlands; and they include among their ranks an artist, a banker, a gardener, a U.S. Marine, and a cardiac physiologist. The birth stories you'll read in this book are as diverse as the fathers who've shared them, from blink-and-you've-missed-it births to marathon three-day labours, from straightforward deliveries to complicated dramas. You will hear these fathers' voices throughout this book: whether joyous, terrified, sceptical, or enthusiastic, each one is a true reflection of the home birth experience.

One of these voices will be that of Alan - my husband - who caught our second baby himself when the midwife didn't quite make it to the house in time. A mechanic by trade, Alan now swears that this experience taught him that birth is `the greatest single feat of engineering in the world'. Will you agree? The day will soon come when you'll find out for yourself. In the mean time, allow me to share some facts, offer some insights, and introduce you to a few more fathers who've come to the idea of home birth with open minds and loving hearts.

All material copyright 2008 Leah Hazard

Customer Reviews

This book was so needed!
Leah has written such a wonderful book. It has already been helpful to 2 fathers-to-be that I have supported recently as a doula. I heartily recommend Leah's informal, yet informative style of writing and her insistence on providing solid, evidence-based facts. Buy this book if your wife's pregnant - it really could make all the differnce to the start of your parenting journey.

The Independent: "A Quite Brilliant Book"; Mothering magazine: "A Gold Mine"
On April 16, Annalisa Barbieri wrote, in an article in "The Independent," that "The Father's Home Birth Handbook" is "a quite brilliant book." She was right! And Melissa Chianta called the book "a gold mine" in Mothering magazine (May/June 2009). She was right too!

Every father-to-be should read this wonderful book, no matter whether his partner is planning to give birth at home or in hospital. Nothing beats the words, in this book, of the many fathers who describe, with admiration and love, how their partners delivered their babies. It is rare that fathers speak so openly about the intimate details of birth and the ways in which watching and helping their loved ones has brought them closer together. Leah Hazard, an experienced doula, writes with charm and authority (and citations!) about the joys and, also, the occasional unexpected problems of home birth. If your partner is pregnant or if you know a man whose partner is pregnant, buy this book so that you or he can learn from other men what they experienced when their partners gave birth. You can buy the book directly via Ms. Hazard's website if Amazon is out of stock.

A neatly compacted book, well researched and in an accessible style.
What makes this book so exciting is that not only is it written in a very accessible format, but the content relies on well researched high quality evidence. The evidence it presents is from "gold standard" and well documented sources that health information specialists and clinical staff use to make decisions on a day to day basis. You can be sure that this book is not just a collection of "googled information sources", but from authoratative sources and with that comes peace of mind for any user of this text. I am a freelance health information analyst (and a mother)and I have recommended this book to prospective parents, but also to clinical staff and health information specialists in the NHS and other health organisations.
Joanna Ptolomey Freelance Health Information Analyst and Consultant