Overview
What this book is about
Trust Your Body! Trust Your Baby! Childbirth Wisdom and Cesarean Prevention (Bergin & Garvey, 1995) is an edited anthology focused specifically on cesarean prevention and VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean). Editor Andrea Frank Henkart assembled contributions from a range of practitioners and writers — including a chapter by John Gray (Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus) on the husband's role in pregnancy, cross-cultural birth stories, a Balinese cesarean story by Robin Lim, and chapters on visualization, body wisdom, healing cesarean trauma, and parenting the newborn.
The book's dedication to preventing unnecessary cesareans and supporting VBAC makes it one of the most directly relevant volumes in the library for Rali's situation — a woman who experienced a cesarean after 43 hours of labour with her first child and is now preparing for her second birth.
Nancy Wainer Cohen, whose foreword opens the book, is one of the founding voices of the VBAC movement in the United States — co-author of the landmark Silent Knife: Cesarean Prevention and Vaginal Birth After Cesarean (1983). Her foreword frames the entire collection: birth matters not just for the birth itself but for how it programs the relationship between mother, baby, partner, and the larger world.
Michel Odent's foreword (his contribution to Unassisted Childbirth by Shanley is reprinted here in a different context) grounds the collection in the physiological argument: the woman's body knows how to give birth; the role of support persons and birth environments is to protect, not manage, this process.
Key Ideas
The core frameworks and findings
1
The cesarean rate is the product of a system, not a biological necessity
The high and rising C-section rate in the United States (and globally) reflects institutional, financial, legal, and cultural pressures — not an inherent medical requirement. The majority of cesareans are preventable.
2
VBAC is safe and is the default option after one previous cesarean
The medical establishment's "once a cesarean, always a cesarean" policy is not evidence-based. The evidence supports VBAC as safe for women with one previous low-transverse uterine incision, adequate inter-pregnancy interval, and spontaneous (not induced) labour onset.
3
The fear-cesarean cycle
Fear of birth — magnified by the previous cesarean experience — activates adrenaline, which inhibits labour progression, which increases the probability of another cesarean. Breaking this cycle requires working through the fear of the first birth before the second birth begins.
4
Healing cesarean trauma is a precondition for the next birth
Unprocessed emotional and physical trauma from a previous cesarean affects the second birth. Healing practices — including Jeannine Parvati Baker's "Transformational Ritual for Healing Cesarean Section Trauma" — are addressed directly.
5
Visualization and mental preparation change the birth
The mind creates the physiological conditions the body needs. Specific visualization techniques for relaxation and for programming positive birth expectations are provided.
6
Body wisdom is forgotten information
The body has an intelligence that knows how to give birth — and has been doing so for 200,000 years of human history without medical supervision. Modern women have been conditioned to override this intelligence with external authority. Reclaiming it is the work.
7
Hospital rituals are cultural, not medical
Chapter 3 (by Robbie Davis-Floyd, medical anthropologist) frames standard hospital birth procedures — admission rituals, IV lines, foetal monitoring, routine vaginal exams, supine position, episiotomy — as cultural rites of passage that impose the hospital's authority rather than serving the birth, and analyses their symbolic meaning.
8
The husband/partner's role is specific and important
John Gray's chapter addresses how men can support their partners through pregnancy and birth — understanding the emotional dimensions of pregnancy, how to reduce rather than increase anxiety, and what the birthing woman actually needs from her partner.
9
Cross-cultural birth wisdom
Birth stories from around the world — including a Balinese cesarean story by Robin Lim (founder of Yayasan Bumi Sehat, recipient of CNN Hero of the Year) — demonstrate both the variety of birth practices and the universal principles underlying natural birth.
10
Parenting the newborn: the fourth trimester
The book does not end at birth — it addresses parenting the newborn as a continuation of the birth philosophy: the newborn needs skin contact, warmth, familiar smells, the mother's voice, and unhurried transition into the world.
Contents
Chapter by chapter — click to expand
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Foreword by Nancy Wainer Cohen
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- Birth's profound effect on mother, baby, family, and society
- The connection between how we birth and how we parent and partner
- Advocacy for treating pregnancy and birth with "honor, respect, gentleness, caring and wisdom"
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Foreword by Michel Odent, MD
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- The physiological basis for protecting the labouring woman's primal state
- The role of attendants: to protect, not manage
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Chapter 1 — Great Expectations (Andrea Frank Henkart)
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- Introduction to the book's philosophy
- What cesarean prevention requires: knowledge, confidence, and support
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Chapter 2 — On the Cutting Edge (Andrea Frank Henkart)
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- The cesarean epidemic: rates, trends, causes
- Why cesareans are over-used and how to avoid them
- When a cesarean is genuinely necessary
§
Chapter 3 — Ritual in the Hospital: Giving Birth the American Way (Robbie E. Davis-Floyd)
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- Hospital birth as cultural ritual: the symbolic meaning of each routine procedure
- The patient as passive subject vs. the woman as active agent
- How to navigate hospital rituals without being subjugated by them
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Chapter 4 — Preparing for Labor and Delivery (Andrea Frank Henkart)
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- Specific preparation steps for birth
- Building confidence in the body's ability to birth
- Creating a birth plan and communicating it to care providers
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Chapter 5 — Accept the Process: A Commentary on Childbirth Education (Gina Maria Alibrandi)
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- Limitations of standard childbirth education: it manages fear rather than eliminating it
- What genuine preparation for birth involves
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Chapter 6 — Visualization Techniques for Relaxation (Andrea Frank Henkart)
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- Practical guided visualizations for use during pregnancy and labour
- The mechanism: visualization reduces adrenaline and programmes positive expectation
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Chapter 7 — Body Wisdom: The Forgotten Information in Childbirth (Donna Germano)
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- The body's intrinsic intelligence in birth
- How women can reconnect with this intelligence
- Positioning, movement, and instinctive behaviour during labour
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Chapter 8 — When Push Comes to Shove: What to Do if You Have a Cesarean (Andrea Frank Henkart)
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- Making peace with a cesarean when it happens
- Protecting the birth experience even within surgical birth
- Skin-to-skin, breastfeeding, cord clamping: what to request in the OR
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Chapter 9 — Healing Cesarean Section Trauma: A Transformational Ritual (Jeannine Parvati Baker)
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- The emotional and spiritual wound of unwanted surgical birth
- A specific healing practice for processing cesarean grief and trauma
- Why healing is necessary before the next birth
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Chapter 10 — One Birth at a Time (Andrea Frank Henkart)
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- VBAC stories and lessons
- What makes VBAC attempts succeed or fail
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Chapter 11 — The Husband's Role in Pregnancy (John Gray)
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- What men need to understand about pregnancy's emotional dimensions
- How to reduce anxiety rather than amplify it
- The partner's role in creating the birth environment
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Chapter 12 — Birth Stories from around the World (Andrea Frank Henkart)
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- Cross-cultural birth narratives
- Common threads: confidence, privacy, support, the absence of fear
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Chapter 13 — A Balinese Cesarean Story (Robin Lim)
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- Birth and cesarean in a culture that honours birth as sacred
- How to approach even a surgical birth with reverence
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Chapter 14 — Parenting the Precious Newborn (Andrea Frank Henkart)
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- The fourth trimester: the newborn's needs for continuity from womb to world
- Skin contact, breastfeeding, gentle handling, and unhurried transition
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Chapter 15 — Circumcision: A Question of Protecting Body Rights (Marilyn Fayre Milos)
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- The ethics and evidence around routine infant circumcision
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Chapter 16 — A Womb of Love (Andrea Frank Henkart)
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- Closing reflection: the home as a womb for the growing family
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Appendices
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- A: Questions to Ask Your Care Provider
- B: Ideas for Your Birth Plan
- C: Affirmations for Childbirth Preparation
- D: Things You Can Do to Avoid Unnecessary Cesareans (reprinted from ICAN)
- E: Sources of Further Information
Practical Takeaways
What to actually do with this
The 43-hour labour ending in cesarean is a significant emotional event that may carry unprocessed fear into the second birth
Work through it before labour begins: the Transformational Ritual in Chapter 9, journaling, therapy, or a conversation with a care provider who can help reframe what happened
Specifically address: fear of labour failing again, fear of another emergency, fear of the same length of labour, fear of the OR
Failure to progress after 43 hours: what specifically stalled? Position? Exhaustion? Fear? An occiput posterior presentation? Baby's position? Knowing this informs preparation for the second birth
The second birth is typically faster in all its phases — especially in a woman whose cervix has already dilated once
Use the visualisation techniques (Chapter 6) during the third trimester
Read the VBAC success stories
Know the evidence: VBAC success rate for women with one previous low-transverse cesarean, adequate inter-pregnancy interval (achieved at 29-30 months), and spontaneous onset of labour is approximately 72-80%
Find a care provider who supports VBAC without requiring continuous electronic monitoring or automatic oxytocin augmentation
Write a birth plan that specifies: no routine augmentation, freedom of movement, dim lights, minimal examinations, immediate skin-to-skin regardless of delivery method
If birth does become a cesarean: specify skin-to-skin in the OR, delayed cord clamping, immediate breastfeeding
Read Chapter 11 (John Gray): understanding what Rali needs is not "support and encouragement" but calm, quiet presence that reduces her anxiety
Avoid creating a "watching" environment — the partner's anxiety is contagious
The ideal partner during labour is present, calm, and knows when to be silent
See Also
Related books in the library
books/laura-shanley/unassisted-childbirth.md — Shanley's book, to which this is a more structured companion; same philosophical lineagebooks/michel-odent/birth-and-breastfeeding.md — the physiological framework underlying both booksbooks/michel-odent/do-we-need-midwives.md — the VBAC microbiome dimension: pre-labour vs. in-labour cesareanbooks/ramiel-nagel/healing-our-children.md — Chapter 8 on birth preparation; emotional and spiritual dimensions