The Birth Partner's Quick Reference Guide and Planner

The Birth Partners Quick Reference Guide and Planner offers concise and authoritative guidance for spouses, relatives, and others-including doulas and other professionals-helping a woman thorough labor, birth, and the first weeks with baby. Includes Australian and New Zealand references and organisations.

For spouses, partners, relatives, and friends-and also for doulas and other care professionals-this is a convenient and indispensable abridged version of the classic bestseller The Birth Partner, for facts on the fly during the ultra-busy period before, during, and after labor and birth. An added planner keeps your plans and to-dos in one place. Generations of spouses and partners have relied on Penny Simkins warm and wise guidance in caring for the new mother, from the last trimester through the early postpartum period. Her book The Birth Partner is the definitive guide to helping a woman through labor and birth.

This new book, The Birth Partners Quick Reference Guide and Planner, is a shorter version of the original, for time-pressed parents and partners. For those who have the original book, it adds a planner component, for hospital or at-home birth plans and for other essential to-dos. It is full of reliable and up-to-date information on:

• Preparing for labor and for the new baby
• Ways to help a woman through each stage of labor and birth
• Pain-relief measures, including epidurals and medications as well as natural techniques
• Ways to induce or speed up labor
• Cesarean birth and complications that may require it
• Breastfeeding and newborn care
• and much more

For the partner who wishes to be truly helpful in the birthing room, this is the essential book to have on hand.

About the Author

Penny Simkin, PT, is a physical therapist, childbirth educator, doula, and birth counselor. She is nationally recognized as a premier authority on childbirth, having helped 9,000 expecting women and birth partners in childbirth and attended hundreds of couples though the birth process. Simkin is a prolific author and serves on more than 10 different consultant and editorial boards, including the journal Birth: Issues in Perinatal Care, The International Childbirth Education Association, and The Seattle Midwifery School, where she also provides training for doulas and lectures to students. She has written myriad books, journal, and magazine articles.

Simkin is also co-founder of DONA International (formerly Doulas of North America) and The Pacific Association for Labor Support. In addition to providing childbirth education, birth counseling, and labor support, Simkin travels extensively throughout the country, lecturing and presenting at conferences and workshops.