HypnoBirthing by Marie F. Mongan was a book I wished I read before baby came! I loved this book. I am grateful to have read it now though while I am designing my childbirth prep course so I can incorporate it. While I don't completely agree with everything in the book (maybe because my own experience was without learning about hypnobabies?) I think some of the exercises are extremely valuable. Not everyone is going to peacefully breathe their baby out - some birth fears are s

Birth Ambassadors by Christine Morton and Elayne Clift is pretty much a book about doulas or, more accurately, a book about “is doula work for you?”. The subtitle says it’s about doulas re-emerging in America but aside from the first chapter, that’s not how I’d summarize it. It was interesting to read the perspective doulas were put in. I didn’t know feeling such a strong calling to this work was so uncommon! On pg 109 I got a little perspective: most people turn away from wo

Real Food by Nina Planck has to be one of my favorite books on nutrition so far. It's completely evidence based with solid studies backing up all her facts and just speaks to the logic in me. So many diets and books are out there now of watch out for this or that and reduce this or that, etc. Real Food is refreshing in that it goes back to simple nutrition. No bothering to read labels, count calories, dissect the ingredients - just ask, could I have eaten this before industri

The Doula Business Guide by Patty Brennan is amazing! If I didn’t have 10,000 other books I want to buy I would certainly invest in this one. Taking copious notes and making copies of the pages that stood out to me the most will have to do for now. Patty gives a variety of great templates for setting up your doula business from part time self-employment to running a company and everything in between. She thoroughly, clearly, and fairly simply tells you how to manage all aspec

I really enjoyed this book by Alfie Kohn and it made a convincing argument for every dispelled myth but, it almost seemed to me as if every kind of parenting style is wrong and you're hurting your kids no matter what you do. Even if you do manage to parent perfectly, society will harm your child. Now of course this is not the case, nor is that what the author is trying to prove. Rather, he is showing how prevalent harmful parenting techniques are in our society and backing ea