Birth is a feminist issue. It’s the feminist issue nobody’s talking about. For too long women have been told, ‘a healthy baby is all that matters’. This book dares to say women matter too. Finally blasting the feminist spotlight into the labour ward, Milli Hill encourages women everywhere to stand and deliver, insisting that birth is no longer left off the list in discussions about female power, control and agency. 

Amity Reed became a midwife to serve women, but the reality of working in overstretched and underfunded NHS maternity services soon shattered her illusions. She’s not alone - for every 30 midwives that train, 29 will leave the profession. Overdue is both the devastating personal story behind the statistics, and a call for change in the NHS. 

What do you do when the unthinkable happens? Elle Wright had an admittedly easy pregnancy - her scans went well, she and her baby were healthy throughout, and in May 2016, she and her husband welcomed their son, Teddy, into the world. Just a few hours after giving birth, they woke to find a nurse holding a cold and unresponsive Teddy, who had stopped breathing during the night. The happiest day of Elle's life had turned into every parent's worst nightmare, and she had to let her beautiful baby boy go.

Lysa has been a paramedic for over 20 years, working for the London Ambulance service - the world's biggest and busiest free service - for much of that time. Here, she reveals what it's really like to work in a job that brings paramedic teams face-to-face with death - and destiny - every day.

Each time she knelt to "catch" another wriggling baby - nearly 3,000 times during her remarkable career - California midwife Peggy Vincent paid homage to the moment when pain bows to joy and the world makes way for one more. With every birth, she encounters another woman-turned-goddess: Catherine rides out her labor in a car careening down a mountain road. Sofia spends hers trying to keep her hyper doctor-father from burning down the house. Susannah gives birth so quietly that neither husband nor midwife notice until there's a baby in the room.

The original Spiritual Midwifery, published in 1976, introduced an entire generation of young women to the possibility of home birth and breast feeding. It also breathed new life into the all-but-vanished field of midwifery. The current edition of this classic book on home birth is now an audiobook, with updated information on the safety of natural childbirth, new birthing stories, and the most recent statistics on births managed by The Farm Midwives. 

Whether you are planning for a baby, just found out you are pregnant or well into your third trimester, this audiobook will help you to feel confident, informed and inspired about your exciting journey ahead. Through years of work with families, senior midwife Marie Louise reveals the key things that will make the biggest, most positive difference to you and your baby as you navigate these life-changing months.  

From the drug addicts who call Amanda ‘the mother I never had’ to the women who’ve pushed back at domestic abuse, to women close to release in their 70s, who just want to stay in the place that they’ve always known, these are stories that are heartbreaking, harrowing and heart-warming. Amanda listens, prescribes and does what she can. After all, she’s their doctor.

In this follow up to Call the Midwife, Jennifer Worth, a midwife working in the docklands area of East London in the 1950s, tells more stories about the people she encountered. There's Jane, who cleaned and generally helped out at Nonnatus House - she was taken to the workhouse as a baby and was allegedly the illegitimate daughter of an aristocrat. Peggy and Frank's parents both died within six months of each other, and the children were left destitute. At the time, there was no other option for them but the workhouse.

There's a wealth of information out there for expectant moms on pregnancy and birth, but so often the dad is left out of the conversation. Male midwife Mark Harris seeks to redress the balance with this new book, drawing on his decades of experience with couples as they make the transition to being new parents. Covering topics from massage to sex and pain relief during labor to breastfeeding, this is a lively, honest, and frank discussion of pregnancy and birth from a man's point of view.