For an entire generation of new parents, this warm, expert work has become the standard guide to the shortest, easiest, and healthiest childbirth. Now a thoroughly updated and revised edition offers new research showing how labor support reduces the rate of cesarean sections, length of labor, need for pain medicine, and number of episiotomies. New material also demonstrates the positive effects of having a doula on mother-infant bonding, how relatives or friends can be trained in labor support, and how hypnosis is used to ease and shorten labor. No expectant parent will want to be without this empowering and irreplaceable book.