The Homeopathic Childbirth Manual: A Practical Guide for Labour, Birth, and the Immediate Postpartum Period is a reference guide written for pregnant women, homeopaths, midwives, and other birth professionals. It offers clear and easy-to-follow information on how to manage many of the physical and emotional challenges encountered during the birth process with the use of homeopathy, a gentle, yet powerful effective form of natural medicine.
- Author: Betty Idarius
- ISBN: 9780964930490
- 159 pages
- Edition: Second
- Paperback
- Published in 1999
- Printed in United States
Reprinted with the permission of The Society of Homeopaths, from 'The Homeopath' magazine, Autumn 1996 edition. Reviewed by Elisabeth Halahan.
I was very pleased when I received The Homeopathic Childbirth Manual for review as several of my patients were about to give birth. Seven weeks later, having had a chance to use the book, what do I think? As the subtitle to the book says, it is a practical guide for labour, birth and the immediate postpartum period. As such it is a very useful book. It is very well laid out, gives an introduction to homoeopathy, a comprehensive list of the most commonly used remedies in childbirth, explains potency and repetition and then treats most problems associated with labour and birth chapter by chapter. Each chapter explains the problems, describes the remedies needed, with a repertory to help with the choice of remedies.
It is a comprehensive book on the subject and this in my view is also its main problem. Whilst it covers the basic remedies needed for a normal birth, I feel it is not for a woman or her partner with little experience of homoeopathy. As Betty herself says: the birthing woman will be too busy during labour to prescribe for herself. So, whoever is going to prescribe needs a good grounding in homoeopathy to prescribe well if complications occur. On the other hand, if the prescriber has some experience, it will give the birthing woman great comfort to know that most situations can be handled homceopathically. As a professional homoeopath I found the book informative and a supplement to the rather meagre information on labour and birth in our repertories. The information helped me to help my patients very quickly and efficiently and gave me the confidence that I could do it. With this book I feel I could attend a birth and be useful.
The book also contains a chapter on the newborn, possible problems, and how homoeopathy can support emergency medical treatment. It lists books, references and US organisations. Whilst the information is clear, full of common sense and encouragement and would give a strong feeling of empowerment to the woman reading it, I would hesitate to recommend it to all my patients. I feel this is a book for an experienced patient or a homoeopath. I would recommend Miranda Castro's book Pregnancy, Birth and Your Baby's First Year to most of my patients, as it is simpler.
On the other hand, I would love Betty Idarius to write a similar book on pregnancy and post-partum problems. With her qualifications and experience as a midwife and homoeopath Betty appears to be well qualified to discuss such topics as breast feeding and post natal depression. There is a real need for strong, well grounded information in these areas.
