Birthing a Better Way

At age 39, Kalena Cook gave birth naturally to a healthy 8 lb., 4 oz. boy with the help of a midwife. The positive and life-changing event inspired her to write about the latest evidence-based research and seek compelling stories from more than fifty interviews with women, doctors, midwives, hospitals, and birth centers. She encourages healthy women to become informed and guides them as a sought-after "Birth Mentor." Kalena owned an award-winning communications company for fifteen years and has a MFA in Advertising Design. Margaret Christensen, M.D., a board certified obstetrician-gynecologist, currently runs the Christensen Center for Whole Life Health, a holistic outpatient functional medicine practice. In her first practice, Renaissance Women's Health Associates, for ten years she created a collaborative, hospital based Ob-Gyn model with Certified Nurse Midwives, as well as served as medical back-up for a CNM-owned, out-of-hospital birth center. She is the mother of four children, all born drug-free.

"Thank you for writing Birthing a Better Way; it's exactly what we need now. The storytelling model plus expert commentary is perfect. We need this alternative. I love the book and will recommend it to everyone!"- Dr. Christiane Northrup, author of Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom; "Through positive birth stories, Birthing a Better Way helps women work out what they want and gain self-confidence."- Sheila Kitzinger, author of Pregnancy & Childbirth: Choices and Challenges; ""These stories read so much like ordinary conversation that I can envision a group of pregnant women reading them aloud to one another, each encouraged to add her own story, and thereby to feel not only companionship but her own singularity and power.""- Jane Pincus, co-author of Our Bodies, Ourselves; "Giving birth in the most natural and tranquil way, within an environment filled with love and gratitude, opens the doorway to a new and more fulfilling life for any child. Caring and gentle hands embracing a newborn's precious moment of entering its new world is truly a gift to any expecting mother and loving family and for that matter the world. To reawaken a woman's natural and intuitive ability to express birthing and mothering is a must in our fast-paced, time-pressured society of quick fixes. Birthing a Better Way opens the way for a new era in child birthing for the many beautiful and wise mothers of the future.""- Dr. John F. Demartini, author of Count Your Blessing: The Healing Power of Gratitude and Love; "A perfect resource for the mother interested in alternatives to hospital birthing, Birthing a Better Way offers reassurance, friendly wisdom, and ways to make birth happen the natural way."- Foreword Reviews