Life After Birth: A Parent's Holistic Guide for Thriving in the Fourth Trimester - Softcover

Speier, Diane S

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1946665223 ISBN 13: 9781946665225

Publisher: Praeclarus Press, 2019

Synopsis

“Life After Birth may be currently classified as the most authoritative document (“the bible”?) about the fourth trimester”.-Michel Odent, MD

"Diane's book is a refreshing and wide-ranging look at the all-important, and vastly underrated fourth trimester. I hope it's widely read by parents-to-be well before they encounter the challenges that have been culturally overlooked for so long."-John W. Travis, MD, MPH, co-author, Wellness Workbook

"Diane Speier has written a book I wish had been available when I had my three children many years ago. This is a book whose time has come; actually, has been overdue! I consider her knowledge, her experience, and her research presented with clarity, skill, and compassion as essential information for every woman expecting a baby. I feel privileged to write this foreword. I have known Dr. Speier for about 35 years and have admired her superb programs dealing with the needs of women during pregnancy, birth, and the postpartum period. She has the expertise of not only having lived the experience of parenting herself but has created hundreds of programs for other mothers and families, and researched this period of life for her PhD, developing a deep understanding. This book has incorporated a whole new level of information made palatable, easily taken in, digested, and available to new birthing families."-Phyllis Klaus LMFT, LMSW

Having a baby is a game changer. The mix of emotions is intense – life is exciting and frightening, exhilarating and exhausting, blissful and stressful. Knowing what to expect and how to handle the changes relieves feelings of anxiety and apprehension, so you can feel confident and competent as you optimize your time during the fourth trimester. Although the transition to parenthood will transform your lives, as individuals and as a couple, there’s a real gap in practical information on how to successfully steer through the early days and weeks of the postpartum period.

This book addresses the gap with up to date holistic knowledge and resources for empowering the whole family, with a purposeful emphasis on the mother’s wellbeing. The important topics that are covered include:

-The fourth trimester

-Hormones

-Breastfeeding

-Bonding and attachment

-The partner relationship

-Maternity leave /going back to work

-Father’s/partner’s lived experience

Life After Birth: A Parent’s Holistic Guide for Thriving in the Fourth Trimester is the first book to apply energy medicine to the postpartum period, with techniques that make it a perfect strategy for managing the energy lows of the fourth trimester. These techniques become powerful self-care strategies for handling the intense day to day responsibilities of newborn parenting.

Dr. Diane S. Speier has been a birth and postpartum professional for 40 years in both the U.S. and UK, starting as a certified childbirth educator and doula in 1978. She is dedicated to helping new mothers move through the postpartum period, offering groups, workshops and classes for mothers and babies for 20 years. Her PhD in Women’s Studies (University of Manchester, UK, 2002) was a feminist exploration of women’s experience of childbirth. Diane is a practicing holistic psychotherapist and hypnotherapist, specializing in perinatal psychology, perinatal mood and anxiety disorders, and recovering from birth trauma. Diane is the mother of four children, and the grandmother of three grandchildren (and step-mother and step-grandmother), and lives in the North West of England.

About this title

Review

"This is a remarkable and stunningly comprehensive book, a book every woman (and man) should read whether they are beginning or continuing their parenting journey...It not only anticipates basic parenting concerns likely to occur during the first crucial months after birth, it includes almost every physical, emotional, mental, and social issue parents might face when they welcome a new baby into their lives.
 
The scope of Life After Birth is truly remarkable. Of particular import is her use of many subtle energy techniques and protocols which are part of energy medicine as it is taught today. Dr. Speier's inclusion of them here adds greatly to the thoroughness of this book. In fact, so comprehensive is Life After Birth that I believe it is destined to become one of the most relevant parenting handbooks of our time. An absolute must read!" 
- Dr. Vicki Matthews, Naturopathic Physician 

"In the age of overspecialisation, the book by Diane Speier is a perfect demonstration of what we should expect from interdisciplinary perspectives. Diane can write as a mother, who had a personal experience of hospital and home births, and also as a grandmother. She can write as a psychologist. I have known Diane in the 1980s as a popular childbirth educator. As a conference organiser, she knows how to attract lay people and medical people as well, and how to communicate with them. She is familiar with the concept of energy medicine. She is a doula. She has been working with British "Health visitors". She can shift from an American way of thinking to a British way. Furthermore, thanks to her academic background, she is able to detect and transmit the points of view of organisations such as the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine, the American College of Nurse-Midwives, the National Association of Nurse Practitioners in Women's Health, the Society for Academic Specialists in General Obstetrics and Gynecology, and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine. "Life after birth" may be currently classified as the most authoritative document ("the bible"?) about the "fourth trimester".
- Michel Odent, MD

Edition details

• Publisher: Praeclarus Press
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 1946665223
• ISBN 13: 9781946665225
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 338