Author: John Compton
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781640781443
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Against the Rise of Terror The heroes finally have the tools they need to stop the Whispering Tyrant, but the lich-king has not been idle. Why has he devoted so much attention to an isolated border fortress, right when divinity seems to be within his grasp? A quest to discover the tyrant's secrets plunges the heroes into a deadly race through a fecund forest, into fearsome dungeons built long before the Shining Crusade, and between spiteful villains harboring ancient grudges. Old enemies stand in the heroes' way yet again, but unexpected allies can help turn the rising tide of death and despair. If the heroes are victorious, they can seize the only chance to deny the Whispering Tyrant his greatest weapon and strike him down before he gains the power of a god. This volume of Pathfinder Adventure Path provides the dramatic conclusion to the Tyrant's Grasp Adventure Path and includes: - "Midwives to Death," a Pathfinder RPG adventure for 16th-level characters, by John Compton. - A massive article celebrating the final Adventure Path volume for the first edition of the Pathfinder RPG. Written by Paizo's developers and designers to close out the first edition with a bang, this article presents new monsters, GM advice, gods both new and revised, staff PCs, a new prestige class, new archetypes, and more! These new rules work with the Tyrant's Grasp Adventure Path or any campaign, and are written by John Compton, Adam Daigle, Eleanor Ferron, Thurston Hillman, James Jacobs, Jason Keeley, Luis Loza, Ron Lundeen, Robert G. McCreary, Erik Mona, Michael Sayre, Owen K.C. Stephens, Mark Seifter, and Linda Zayas-Palmer.
Midwives to Death
Author: John Compton
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781640781443
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Against the Rise of Terror The heroes finally have the tools they need to stop the Whispering Tyrant, but the lich-king has not been idle. Why has he devoted so much attention to an isolated border fortress, right when divinity seems to be within his grasp? A quest to discover the tyrant's secrets plunges the heroes into a deadly race through a fecund forest, into fearsome dungeons built long before the Shining Crusade, and between spiteful villains harboring ancient grudges. Old enemies stand in the heroes' way yet again, but unexpected allies can help turn the rising tide of death and despair. If the heroes are victorious, they can seize the only chance to deny the Whispering Tyrant his greatest weapon and strike him down before he gains the power of a god. This volume of Pathfinder Adventure Path provides the dramatic conclusion to the Tyrant's Grasp Adventure Path and includes: - "Midwives to Death," a Pathfinder RPG adventure for 16th-level characters, by John Compton. - A massive article celebrating the final Adventure Path volume for the first edition of the Pathfinder RPG. Written by Paizo's developers and designers to close out the first edition with a bang, this article presents new monsters, GM advice, gods both new and revised, staff PCs, a new prestige class, new archetypes, and more! These new rules work with the Tyrant's Grasp Adventure Path or any campaign, and are written by John Compton, Adam Daigle, Eleanor Ferron, Thurston Hillman, James Jacobs, Jason Keeley, Luis Loza, Ron Lundeen, Robert G. McCreary, Erik Mona, Michael Sayre, Owen K.C. Stephens, Mark Seifter, and Linda Zayas-Palmer.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781640781443
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Against the Rise of Terror The heroes finally have the tools they need to stop the Whispering Tyrant, but the lich-king has not been idle. Why has he devoted so much attention to an isolated border fortress, right when divinity seems to be within his grasp? A quest to discover the tyrant's secrets plunges the heroes into a deadly race through a fecund forest, into fearsome dungeons built long before the Shining Crusade, and between spiteful villains harboring ancient grudges. Old enemies stand in the heroes' way yet again, but unexpected allies can help turn the rising tide of death and despair. If the heroes are victorious, they can seize the only chance to deny the Whispering Tyrant his greatest weapon and strike him down before he gains the power of a god. This volume of Pathfinder Adventure Path provides the dramatic conclusion to the Tyrant's Grasp Adventure Path and includes: - "Midwives to Death," a Pathfinder RPG adventure for 16th-level characters, by John Compton. - A massive article celebrating the final Adventure Path volume for the first edition of the Pathfinder RPG. Written by Paizo's developers and designers to close out the first edition with a bang, this article presents new monsters, GM advice, gods both new and revised, staff PCs, a new prestige class, new archetypes, and more! These new rules work with the Tyrant's Grasp Adventure Path or any campaign, and are written by John Compton, Adam Daigle, Eleanor Ferron, Thurston Hillman, James Jacobs, Jason Keeley, Luis Loza, Ron Lundeen, Robert G. McCreary, Erik Mona, Michael Sayre, Owen K.C. Stephens, Mark Seifter, and Linda Zayas-Palmer.
The Soul Midwives' Handbook
Author: Felicity Warner
Publisher: Hay House, Inc
ISBN: 1848507038
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 305
Book Description
Soul Midwives, a movement begun by Felicity Warner, has changed the face of modern holistic and spiritual palliative care in the UK and abroad.Soul Midwives are holistic and spiritual companions to the dying. They draw on traditional skills, now largely forgotten, applying them to our modern world to ease the passage of those who are dying. Their services are used within people's own homes, in hospices and in care homes.Anyone with an open and compassionate heart and a desire to help others can train to become a Soul Midwife. This book will guide you through the core principles and techniques of this practice.
Publisher: Hay House, Inc
ISBN: 1848507038
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 305
Book Description
Soul Midwives, a movement begun by Felicity Warner, has changed the face of modern holistic and spiritual palliative care in the UK and abroad.Soul Midwives are holistic and spiritual companions to the dying. They draw on traditional skills, now largely forgotten, applying them to our modern world to ease the passage of those who are dying. Their services are used within people's own homes, in hospices and in care homes.Anyone with an open and compassionate heart and a desire to help others can train to become a Soul Midwife. This book will guide you through the core principles and techniques of this practice.
Midwives
Author: Chris Bohjalian
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 1400032970
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 386
Book Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • This modern classic from the author of The Flight Attendant is a compulsively readable novel that explores questions of human responsibility that are as fundamental to our society now as they were when the book was first published. A selection of Oprah's original Book Club that has sold more than two million copies. On an icy winter night in an isolated house in rural Vermont, a seasoned midwife named Sibyl Danforth takes desperate measures to save a baby’s life. She performs an emergency cesarean section on a mother she believes has died of stroke. But what if—as Sibyl's assistant later charges—the patient wasn't already dead? The ensuing trial bears the earmarks of a witch hunt, forcing Sibyl to face the antagonism of the law, the hostility of traditional doctors, and the accusations of her own conscience. Exploring the complex and emotional decisions surrounding childbirth, Midwives engages, moves, and transfixes us as only the very best novels ever do. Look for Chris Bohjalian's new novel, The Lioness!
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 1400032970
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 386
Book Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • This modern classic from the author of The Flight Attendant is a compulsively readable novel that explores questions of human responsibility that are as fundamental to our society now as they were when the book was first published. A selection of Oprah's original Book Club that has sold more than two million copies. On an icy winter night in an isolated house in rural Vermont, a seasoned midwife named Sibyl Danforth takes desperate measures to save a baby’s life. She performs an emergency cesarean section on a mother she believes has died of stroke. But what if—as Sibyl's assistant later charges—the patient wasn't already dead? The ensuing trial bears the earmarks of a witch hunt, forcing Sibyl to face the antagonism of the law, the hostility of traditional doctors, and the accusations of her own conscience. Exploring the complex and emotional decisions surrounding childbirth, Midwives engages, moves, and transfixes us as only the very best novels ever do. Look for Chris Bohjalian's new novel, The Lioness!
The Secret Midwife
Author: The Secret Midwife
Publisher: John Blake
ISBN: 1789462533
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 276
Book Description
For fans of One Born Every Minute. The Secret Midwife is a heart-breaking, engrossing and important read. At once joyful and profoundly shocking, this is the story of birth, straight from the delivery room. Strongest supporter, best friend, expert, cheerleader and chief photographer . . . Before, during and after labour the role of a midwife is second to none. The Secret Midwife reveals the highs and lows on the frontline of the maternity unit, from the mother who tries to give herself a DIY caesarean to the baby born into witness protection, and from surprise infants that arrive down toilets to ones that turn up in the lift. But there is a problem; the system which is supposed to support the midwives and the women they care for is starting to crumble. Short-staffed, over worked and underappreciated - these crippling conditions are taking their toll on the dedicated staff doing their utmost to uphold our National Health Service, and the consequences are very serious indeed.
Publisher: John Blake
ISBN: 1789462533
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 276
Book Description
For fans of One Born Every Minute. The Secret Midwife is a heart-breaking, engrossing and important read. At once joyful and profoundly shocking, this is the story of birth, straight from the delivery room. Strongest supporter, best friend, expert, cheerleader and chief photographer . . . Before, during and after labour the role of a midwife is second to none. The Secret Midwife reveals the highs and lows on the frontline of the maternity unit, from the mother who tries to give herself a DIY caesarean to the baby born into witness protection, and from surprise infants that arrive down toilets to ones that turn up in the lift. But there is a problem; the system which is supposed to support the midwives and the women they care for is starting to crumble. Short-staffed, over worked and underappreciated - these crippling conditions are taking their toll on the dedicated staff doing their utmost to uphold our National Health Service, and the consequences are very serious indeed.
Midwives Coping with Loss and Grief
Author: Doreen Kenworthy
Publisher: Radcliffe Publishing
ISBN: 1846193885
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 187
Book Description
The experience of stillbirth and other losses in pregnancy at what is usually a time of great joy is tragic for everyone involved, including midwifery professionals. Although research increasingly shows how profound the effects of loss can be, few studies have explored the effects of pregnancy loss - which often leads to other personal and professional traumas such as loss of autonomy or a workplace - on midwives. This in-depth investigation uses a phenomenological approach to capture midwives' experiences of loss and grief in their own words, and encompasses both pregnancy loss and wider professional and personal issues. It then makes recommendations to enhance midwives' resilience and ability to cope appropriately, whilst giving maximum support to their clients. Reflections on the emerging implications for midwifery education and practice further broaden the scope of the analysis. The insights in this book will be of great use to midwifery managers and supervisors. They will also help midwives to nurture themselves, their colleagues and their clients at a time when pressures on the service can leave support lacking. The devastating experience of losing a baby for women and their families is something that, as midwives, we strive to understand in order to provide appropriate practical and emotional support. Doreen and Mavis encourage us to consider how we are affected by the grief of others at a deeply personal level. Ultimately the message in this book is one of hope: through reflection and the sharing of experiences midwives who have been with women whose babies have died can regain their personal strength and learn to re-shape memories in ways that contribute to personal growth and understanding.A" - From the Foreword by Nicky Leap
Publisher: Radcliffe Publishing
ISBN: 1846193885
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 187
Book Description
The experience of stillbirth and other losses in pregnancy at what is usually a time of great joy is tragic for everyone involved, including midwifery professionals. Although research increasingly shows how profound the effects of loss can be, few studies have explored the effects of pregnancy loss - which often leads to other personal and professional traumas such as loss of autonomy or a workplace - on midwives. This in-depth investigation uses a phenomenological approach to capture midwives' experiences of loss and grief in their own words, and encompasses both pregnancy loss and wider professional and personal issues. It then makes recommendations to enhance midwives' resilience and ability to cope appropriately, whilst giving maximum support to their clients. Reflections on the emerging implications for midwifery education and practice further broaden the scope of the analysis. The insights in this book will be of great use to midwifery managers and supervisors. They will also help midwives to nurture themselves, their colleagues and their clients at a time when pressures on the service can leave support lacking. The devastating experience of losing a baby for women and their families is something that, as midwives, we strive to understand in order to provide appropriate practical and emotional support. Doreen and Mavis encourage us to consider how we are affected by the grief of others at a deeply personal level. Ultimately the message in this book is one of hope: through reflection and the sharing of experiences midwives who have been with women whose babies have died can regain their personal strength and learn to re-shape memories in ways that contribute to personal growth and understanding.A" - From the Foreword by Nicky Leap
The Medicalization of Birth and Death
Author: Lauren K. Hall
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
ISBN: 1421433338
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 350
Book Description
Improving how individuals give birth and die in the United States requires reforming the regulatory, reimbursement, and legal structures that centralize care in hospitals and prevent the growth of community-based alternatives. In 1900, most Americans gave birth and died at home, with minimal medical intervention. By contrast, most Americans today begin and end their lives in hospitals. The medicalization we now see is due in large part to federal and state policies that draw patients away from community-based providers, such as birth centers and hospice care, and toward the most intensive and costliest kinds of care. But the evidence suggests that birthing and dying people receive too much—even harmful—medical intervention. In The Medicalization of Birth and Death, political scientist Lauren K. Hall describes how and why birth and death became medicalized events. While hospitalization provides certain benefits, she acknowledges, it also creates harms, limiting patient autonomy, driving up costs, and causing a cascade of interventions, many with serious side effects. Tracing the regulatory, legal, and financial policies that centralize care during birth and death, Hall argues that medicalization reduces competition, stifles innovation, and prevents individuals from accessing the most appropriate care during their most vulnerable moments. She also examines the profound implications of policy-enforced medicalization on informed consent and shows how medicalization challenges the healthcare community's most foundational ethical commitments. Drawing on interviews with medical and nonmedical healthcare providers, as well as surveys of patients and their families, Hall provides a broad overview of the costs, benefits, and origins of medicalized birth and death. The Medicalization of Birth and Death is required reading for academics, patients, providers, policymakers, and anyone else interested in how policy shapes healthcare options and limits patients and providers during life's most profound moments.
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
ISBN: 1421433338
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 350
Book Description
Improving how individuals give birth and die in the United States requires reforming the regulatory, reimbursement, and legal structures that centralize care in hospitals and prevent the growth of community-based alternatives. In 1900, most Americans gave birth and died at home, with minimal medical intervention. By contrast, most Americans today begin and end their lives in hospitals. The medicalization we now see is due in large part to federal and state policies that draw patients away from community-based providers, such as birth centers and hospice care, and toward the most intensive and costliest kinds of care. But the evidence suggests that birthing and dying people receive too much—even harmful—medical intervention. In The Medicalization of Birth and Death, political scientist Lauren K. Hall describes how and why birth and death became medicalized events. While hospitalization provides certain benefits, she acknowledges, it also creates harms, limiting patient autonomy, driving up costs, and causing a cascade of interventions, many with serious side effects. Tracing the regulatory, legal, and financial policies that centralize care during birth and death, Hall argues that medicalization reduces competition, stifles innovation, and prevents individuals from accessing the most appropriate care during their most vulnerable moments. She also examines the profound implications of policy-enforced medicalization on informed consent and shows how medicalization challenges the healthcare community's most foundational ethical commitments. Drawing on interviews with medical and nonmedical healthcare providers, as well as surveys of patients and their families, Hall provides a broad overview of the costs, benefits, and origins of medicalized birth and death. The Medicalization of Birth and Death is required reading for academics, patients, providers, policymakers, and anyone else interested in how policy shapes healthcare options and limits patients and providers during life's most profound moments.
Death and a Maiden
Author: William David Myers
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1609090144
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 293
Book Description
On the feast of St. Michael, September 1659, a thirteen-year-old peasant girl left her family's rural home to work as a maid in the nearby city of Braunschweig. Just two years later, Grethe Schmidt found herself imprisoned and accused of murdering her bastard child, even though the fact of her pregnancy was inconclusive and no infant's body was found to justify the severe measures used against her. The tale spiraled outward to set a defense lawyer and legal theorist against powerful city magistrates and then upward to a legal contest between that city and its overlord, the Duchy of Brunswick, with the city's independence and ancient liberties hanging in the balance. Death and a Maiden tells a fascinating story that begins in the bedchamber of a house in Brunswick and ends at the court of Duke Augustus in the city of Wolfenbettel, with political intrigue along the way. After thousands of pages of testimony and rancorous legal exchange, it is still not clear that any murder happened. Myers infuses the story of Grethe's arrest, torture, trial, and sentence for "suspected infanticide" with a detailed account of the workings of the criminal system in continental Europe, including the nature of interrogations, the process of torture, and the creation of a "criminal" identity over time. He presents an in-depth examination of a criminal system in which torture was both legal and an important part of criminal investigations. This story serves as a captivating slice of European history as well as a highly informative look at the condition of poor women and the legal system in mid-seventeeth century Germany. General readers and scholars alike will be riveted by Grethe's ordeal.
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1609090144
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 293
Book Description
On the feast of St. Michael, September 1659, a thirteen-year-old peasant girl left her family's rural home to work as a maid in the nearby city of Braunschweig. Just two years later, Grethe Schmidt found herself imprisoned and accused of murdering her bastard child, even though the fact of her pregnancy was inconclusive and no infant's body was found to justify the severe measures used against her. The tale spiraled outward to set a defense lawyer and legal theorist against powerful city magistrates and then upward to a legal contest between that city and its overlord, the Duchy of Brunswick, with the city's independence and ancient liberties hanging in the balance. Death and a Maiden tells a fascinating story that begins in the bedchamber of a house in Brunswick and ends at the court of Duke Augustus in the city of Wolfenbettel, with political intrigue along the way. After thousands of pages of testimony and rancorous legal exchange, it is still not clear that any murder happened. Myers infuses the story of Grethe's arrest, torture, trial, and sentence for "suspected infanticide" with a detailed account of the workings of the criminal system in continental Europe, including the nature of interrogations, the process of torture, and the creation of a "criminal" identity over time. He presents an in-depth examination of a criminal system in which torture was both legal and an important part of criminal investigations. This story serves as a captivating slice of European history as well as a highly informative look at the condition of poor women and the legal system in mid-seventeeth century Germany. General readers and scholars alike will be riveted by Grethe's ordeal.
Partial Stories
Author: Claire L. Wendland
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226816885
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 365
Book Description
"Partial Stories takes readers to Malawi, where roughly one in twenty women can expect to die of a pregnancy or childbirth complication, despite decades of safe-motherhood programs. The stories of these mothers are told in hospitals and villages, by chiefs and doctors, herbalists and nurses, epidemiologists and healers, and competing explanations proliferate. The mothers' stories are used by elders for technical education and moral instruction at a coming-of-age-ritual, a district hospital's mortality review, and in the reflected glow of a computer screen at an international conference. After orienting readers to urban Malawi's context of therapeutic pluralism and material scarcity, Claire Wendland discusses the ways various experts account for maternal death, showing how their diverse explanations reflect competing visions of the past and shared concerns about social change. She looks to a series of pregnancy-related deaths in order to consider bodies as biosocial phenomena, shaped from before birth by history and social inequality. Wendland reveals an uneven therapeutic landscape that pushes experts to improvise, clinically and ethically. Their creative, essential, and sometimes deadly improvisations ask us to reconsider the "best practice" dogmas of global health and transnational research, as well as the nature of medical authority and expertise. Wendland demonstrates how strategies of legitimation render care more dangerous and knowledge more partial than it might otherwise be"--
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226816885
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 365
Book Description
"Partial Stories takes readers to Malawi, where roughly one in twenty women can expect to die of a pregnancy or childbirth complication, despite decades of safe-motherhood programs. The stories of these mothers are told in hospitals and villages, by chiefs and doctors, herbalists and nurses, epidemiologists and healers, and competing explanations proliferate. The mothers' stories are used by elders for technical education and moral instruction at a coming-of-age-ritual, a district hospital's mortality review, and in the reflected glow of a computer screen at an international conference. After orienting readers to urban Malawi's context of therapeutic pluralism and material scarcity, Claire Wendland discusses the ways various experts account for maternal death, showing how their diverse explanations reflect competing visions of the past and shared concerns about social change. She looks to a series of pregnancy-related deaths in order to consider bodies as biosocial phenomena, shaped from before birth by history and social inequality. Wendland reveals an uneven therapeutic landscape that pushes experts to improvise, clinically and ethically. Their creative, essential, and sometimes deadly improvisations ask us to reconsider the "best practice" dogmas of global health and transnational research, as well as the nature of medical authority and expertise. Wendland demonstrates how strategies of legitimation render care more dangerous and knowledge more partial than it might otherwise be"--
Lovie
Author: Lisa Yarger
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469630060
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 321
Book Description
From 1950 to 2001, Lovie Beard Shelton practiced midwifery in eastern North Carolina homes, delivering some 4,000 babies to black, white, Mennonite, and hippie women; to those too poor to afford a hospital birth; and to a few rich enough to have any kind of delivery they pleased. Her life, which was about giving life, was conspicuously marked by loss, including the untimely death of her husband and the murder of her son. Lovie is a provocative chronicle of Shelton's life and work, which spanned enormous changes in midwifery and in the ways women give birth. In this artful exploration of documentary fieldwork, Lisa Yarger confronts the choices involved in producing an authentic portrait of a woman who is at once loner and self-styled folk hero. Fully embracing the difficulties of telling a true story, Yarger is able to get at the story of telling the story. As Lovie describes her calling, we meet a woman who sees herself working in partnership with God and who must wrestle with the question of what happens when a woman who has devoted her life to service, to doing God's work, ages out of usefulness. When I'm no longer a midwife, who am I? Facing retirement and a host of health issues, Lovie attempts to fit together the jagged pieces of her life as she prepares for one final home birth.
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469630060
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 321
Book Description
From 1950 to 2001, Lovie Beard Shelton practiced midwifery in eastern North Carolina homes, delivering some 4,000 babies to black, white, Mennonite, and hippie women; to those too poor to afford a hospital birth; and to a few rich enough to have any kind of delivery they pleased. Her life, which was about giving life, was conspicuously marked by loss, including the untimely death of her husband and the murder of her son. Lovie is a provocative chronicle of Shelton's life and work, which spanned enormous changes in midwifery and in the ways women give birth. In this artful exploration of documentary fieldwork, Lisa Yarger confronts the choices involved in producing an authentic portrait of a woman who is at once loner and self-styled folk hero. Fully embracing the difficulties of telling a true story, Yarger is able to get at the story of telling the story. As Lovie describes her calling, we meet a woman who sees herself working in partnership with God and who must wrestle with the question of what happens when a woman who has devoted her life to service, to doing God's work, ages out of usefulness. When I'm no longer a midwife, who am I? Facing retirement and a host of health issues, Lovie attempts to fit together the jagged pieces of her life as she prepares for one final home birth.
Labyrinth of Birth
Author: Pam England
Publisher: Birthing from Within Books
ISBN: 9781616230371
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Designed to transform the experience of childbirth, this manual calls upon the use of the timeless and powerful symbol of the labyrinth in 12 simple meditations and ceremonies. Ideal as a tool for centering the self and calming the body and mind, this guide ushers readers through the inner journey of the childbearing year--from pregnancy and labor through the postpartum stage. A variety of labyrinths--including four childbirth-related labyrinths from the Hopi and Papago cultures in the American Southwest and two others from India--are presented in this handbook and cover topics that include helping mothers focus on their emotional and spiritual state preparation for birth, aid in calming the mind and steadying breathing during birth, and allowing parents to fully process their experiences. Instructions for drawing a classic labyrinth, ideas for personalizing the design, and labyrinth "seeds"--start-up patterns for six variations of labyrinth--are also included.
Publisher: Birthing from Within Books
ISBN: 9781616230371
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Designed to transform the experience of childbirth, this manual calls upon the use of the timeless and powerful symbol of the labyrinth in 12 simple meditations and ceremonies. Ideal as a tool for centering the self and calming the body and mind, this guide ushers readers through the inner journey of the childbearing year--from pregnancy and labor through the postpartum stage. A variety of labyrinths--including four childbirth-related labyrinths from the Hopi and Papago cultures in the American Southwest and two others from India--are presented in this handbook and cover topics that include helping mothers focus on their emotional and spiritual state preparation for birth, aid in calming the mind and steadying breathing during birth, and allowing parents to fully process their experiences. Instructions for drawing a classic labyrinth, ideas for personalizing the design, and labyrinth "seeds"--start-up patterns for six variations of labyrinth--are also included.