An advocate for breastfeeding and the healthier and brighter babies it nurtures, Smith argues here that normal birth supports normal breastfeeding, and that maternity practices that interfere with establishing and maintaining breastfeeding should be avoided except when they are absolutely necessary for the life or health of the mother or baby. Her topics include home birth and institutional delivery, staff acceptance of or resistance to companions for the mother's labor, physics and forces during Cesarean delivery, the outcomes of labor induction, electronic fetal monitoring, why nutrition and oral hydration during labor are still controversial, the effect of labor drugs on the infant, and immediate and sustained skin-to-skin contact. She has revised the 2004 first edition that she wrote with Mary Kroger, who has since died. Annotation ©2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)