'New Active Birth' will help you and your partner prepare for and experience an Active Birth. Naturally, throughout time and the world over, women have chosen to walk, stand, squat, lie - to move their bodies freely and actively to find the most comfortable positions for labour and birth. It is only we in the west who have the extraordinary notion that a woman should lie on her back in a position that defies the laws of nature and gravity.

With this book you can learn to develop all your body's resources to deal with the instinctive experience of childbirth. It is also for partners, teachers, midwives and everyone involved, to help mothers get up off the delivery table and to bring back some of the common sense which has been overlooked by modern obstetrics.

'New Active Birth' is the new and revised edition of Janet Balaskas' pioneering and acclaimed 'Active Birth':

Over 180 clear black and white photographs and line drawings throughout.

Fully updated and extended with new information - includes sections on Water Birth and Recovery After Birth.

Revised and expanded prenatal and postnatal exercises with step by step photographs.

A detailed up-to-the minute section covering every aspect of Active Birth at home and in hospital and the Active Birth Movement.

Janet Balaskas is the founder of the Active Birth Movement. The mother of four children, she trained with the National Childbirth Trust and is a counsellor for childbirth.