SHARING BIRTH: A Father's Guide to Giving Support During Labor

A spotty, uneven guide for the father as labor coach. Jones, a certified childbirth educator, integrates a poetic view of birth with his routine medical information: in transition, we learn, ""a woman becomes a primitive, elemental being in the grip of a creative power far greater than we can understand,"" He relates numerous case stories as he skips around through the basics of a new father's concerns (""We Are Pregnant""); the progression of labor; hints to help the laboring mother (relaxation techniques, massage); the immediate after-birth period; ""Special Situations"" (inducing labor, caesareans); and the place of family and friends at a birth (follow the personal wishes of the mother). This is all routine advice, with no subject explored in depth or at length (though Jones does cite a close encounter with a skunk en route to hospital to illustrate a ""special situation"" that might arise). For special attention to father's and couple's concerns, see instead Janice Presser's When Two Become Three (p. 407); for specifics on support during birth, Elisabeth Noble's Childbirth with Insight (1983).