I really liked how this book made me feel empowered about the process of giving birth. As I am pregnant for the first time, I have been trying to educate myself about the process of giving birth because I feel that the more knowledge I have, the better prepared I will be. This book is unique among the birth help books that I have read in that the first part of the book (roughly a third, perhaps more of the total) is birth experiences as written by women, and not the author. Ina May Gaskin does not editorialize on the birth stories, nor does she pick only those that she helped with. By being able to read a wide variety of women's experiences with birth, I was better able to formulate my own ideas of how I would like to experience this process. I was grateful that she didn't say, "This is the best way." Instead, by giving options, she allowed me to come to my own conclusions.

The second part of the book details Ina May Gaskin's preferred method of birth, and some of the successes she personally has had. The end result of the book was that I felt liberated, empowered, and excited for birth, and not wary or fearful.