EXERCISES FOR TRUE NATURAL CHILDBIRTH

Mrs. Hartman, a Registered Nurse, was turned on to drug-free childbirth in the '50's by a Grantly Dick Read phonograph record and shortly afterward became an exercise instructor for Dr. Robert Bradley who wrote Husband-Coached Childbirth. Neither the advice nor the exercises -- pelvic rock, abdominal breathing, relaxation, Kegel -- she passes on here depart from standard natural childbirth procedures of the past twenty years or so, and her gooey style, not to mention her loving helpmate posture (mother's day should be organized around ""coming-home time for Daddy""), can be off-putting. However Hartman's enthusiastic descriptions of her own five pregnancies and deliveries (all, of course, by the Bradley method and in all but the first, parents and baby went home two days after delivery -- labor on two occasions began at La Leche meetings) should go a long way toward establishing her credentials and instilling confidence in women facing their first ""glorious"" experience.