Ina May has been a midwife for decades, and has seen it all; breech babies, teen mothers, mothers giving birth under the influence of drugs, mothers giving birth in remote cabins in the wilderness. She works in a collaborative community known as "The Farm", and as you might expect, much of the book has a hippie overtone. If you can make it through the peace, love, and pot smoking you'll find an invaluable set of stories that are calming and reassuring. Unlike pregnancy books that talk about the million possible complications a new mother has to look forward to, this book focuses on stories of women and birthing naturally, good outcomes as well as a few bad, but never going into the hysteria and stress that other books often do. Ina May stresses that women have been giving birth for many many generations, and as you read the book, you start to feel a part of that community, that line of mothers. While this book isn't big on practical advice for pregnancy, it's a must-read to calm nerves and reassure women that what they are going through isn't so complicated as modern medicine would make us think.