Birthing Naturally Books

Materials to nurture your spiritual life through childbearing.

Christian Childbirth Handbook Outline

The Christian Childbirth Handbook is laid out by subjects and topics as they may be taught in a childbirth class. Each topic is an educational unit on its own, or can be read with the entire subject. This gives tremendous freedom to the reader to move throughout the book in a way that suits their need and ability to learn.

The topical format also makes the text easily adapted for use in childbirth education classes, allowing teachers to assign specific reading assignments targeted to the day's topics. It will fit as easily into a four week class as a ten week class. Midwives and doulas will find it easy to recommend specific topics for clients to read.

Each subject is concluded with activities and journaling questions intended to help readers process the information from the book. Handouts for using the activities as part of a class will be available free at the website.

The following is the working outline (minor changes may be made as production continues):

Subject One: Christian Childbirth
Topic 1 : What is Christian Childbirth?
Topic 2 : How faith affects labor
Topic 3 : Biblical Principles for Childbirth

Subject Two: Healthy Pregnancy
Topic 1 : God's design and control of pregnancy
Topic 2 : Stewardship of Good Nutrition
Topic 3 : Stewardship of Adequate Exercise
Topic 4 : Spiritually Healthy Pregnancy

Subject Three: Planning for Labor and Birth
Topic 1 : Biblical Planning
Topic 2 : Written Birth Plans
Topic 3 : Using your birth plan
Topic 4 : Birth Planning and Guilt

Subject Four: Labor Process
Topic 1 : God's Design for labor and birth
Topic 2 : How to "measure"ť labor progress
Topic 3 : Pre-Labor
Topic 4 : Early Labor
Topic 5 : Active Labor
Topic 6 : Transition
Topic 7 : Pushing Phase
Topic 8 : Immediate Post-Partum

Subject Five: Pain
Topic 1 : Why pain in labor?
Topic 2 : Factors that affect pain
Topic 3 : Fear and Pain
Topic 4 : Pain Coping Strategies
Topic 5 : Abnormal Pain

Subject Six: Staying Comfortable
Topic 1 : Biblical Examples of Comforting
Topic 2 : Touch
Topic 3 : Positions
Topic 4 : Movement
Topic 5 : Water
Topic 6 : Relaxation
Topic 7 : Environment

Subject Seven: Options for Labor
Topic 1 : How is not eternal, why is
Topic 3 : Stewardship of Childbirth
Topic 2 : Choosing with Love
Topic 4 : Birth Place/Birth Attendant
Topic 5 : Routine Hospital Procedures
Topic 6 : Induction Options
Topic 7 : Pain management
Topic 8 : Pain Medication Options
Topic 9 : Making Decisions in Labor
Topic 10 : The Reality of "Options"ť

Subject Eight: Labor Challenges
Topic 1 : How do Christian's handle difficult situations?
Topic 2 : Variation or Emergency?
Topic 3 : List of Challenges
Topic 4 : Cesarean Surgery

Subject Nine: Getting to Know Your New Baby
Topic 1 : Your Newborn Baby
Topic 2 : Your Newborn as a Person
Topic 3 : Breastfeeding Decisions

Subject Ten: Your New Family
Topic 1 : God's Design for Family
Topic 2 : Mom's needs postpartum
Topic 3 : Baby's needs postpartum
Topic 4 : Dad's needs postpartum

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