Reviews 1st edition

This is an interesting and challenging book that has a proven success record in the Netherlands. To sell 6000 copies in a previous Dutch edition is very impressive and suggests wide acceptance or at least lively debate in that country.

This book is very well written and offers an easy and enjoyable introduction to the field of obstetrics. It covers every aspect of delivery and advocates the practicing of timely care in the labor room.

Proactive Support of Labor: The Challenge of Normal Childbirth is one of a select few publications aimed at professionals engaged in hospital-based obstetric care that invites the reader to examine their views on the act of childbirth.  This does not mean that there is a lack of publication in the areas of midwifery or any number of other philosophies defining what a “normal” or “natural” childbirth experience should entail.

This book would seem likely to provoke a lively debate among the obstetric/midwifery community. There may be a number of policies promoted which could prove controversial and I see no harm whatsoever in that.

This brave and commendable book is not for the faint-hearted and requires each and every one of us involved in caring for women in childbirth to re-examine and re-define our practices for the future of normal birth not only for now, but for the next generation.

Proactive Support of Labor is a 21st century rehabilitation of the classic Active Management of Labor. It is a re-think: re-stating, providing evidence for, and updating of the concept. Plus, it provides the natural scientific basis of this approach and some important new ideas.

This is a provocative and thought-provoking book. I am not aware of competing books. The authors are correct about the book by O'Driscoll and Meagher ("the active management of labor") on which Proactive Support of Labor is based.