Main description:

This book informs and enlighten health professionals on how the recognition of fearing women can change their episode of care during childbearing. It gives practical advice on the way women present to services and the challenges that this invokes. This work is the first of its kind aimed at clinicians to deconstruct ideology around childbearing myths and its challenges. The authors review the evidence that exists and how modern maternity systems are responding to fear and shaping healthcare.

Whilst some worry and anxiety is expected and indeed considered normal during childbearing, it has been suggested that this has now proliferated to a degree of abnormal for many women. Why is that and how is this panic spread? Media portrayal of birth is suggested as unrealistic material and to show only that which is dramatic and horrific. This has been considered as one factor influencing modern women.
Medicalisation, technology and demand upon services is another consequence of providing almost all maternity care in hospitals. Given that the majority of childbearing women are fit and healthy is this another causative factor?

By removing women from their homes and families at such a vulnerable time has a serious consequence for how she will experience her greatest leap of faith into motherhood. All of these issues are explored and examined in the book with ideas and practical suggestions of what may be done to change this increasingly common problem. This book is intended at midwives and clinicians working in maternity settings.

Contents:

Chapter 1. History of childbearing and the relevance to anxiety and fearDr Maeve O'Connell, Rhona O'Connell
Chapter 2. Global perspectives of anxiety and fear in childbearingProfessor Helen Haines
Chapter 3. The neurophysiologogy of childbearing fearDr Kathryn Gutteridge
Chapter 4. Maternity systems and processes; how they influence womenDr Geraldine Butcher Ms Clare Willocks
Chapter 5. The Gathering StormDr Tracey Cooper, Laura Godfrey-Isaacs
Chapter 6. Life experiences and relevance to birth trauma and fear in childbearingDr Kathryn Gutteridge
Chapter 7. Childbearing women presenting with severe fear and tokophobiaDr Yana Richens, Dr Kathryn Gutteridge
Chapter 8. The effects of childbearing anxiety and fear on relationshipsProfessor Hannah Dahlen
Chapter 9. Effects of anxiety and fear on the birthDr Helen Shallow
Chapter 10. Policy and service provision in maternity settings and its influence on childbearing womenJulia Lidderdale, Dr Kathryn Gutteridge
Chapter 11. Never safer; never more afraid - Women's voices and stories of childbearing and fear Catherine Williams
Chapter 12. Shifting Tides - from storm to salvationDr Sheena Byrom & Anna Byrom