Sixteen international healthcare practitioners and academics contribute 16 chapters examining the changes in intrapartum care over the past 50 years and their intersection in midwifery practice. Coverage includes an overview of the recent history and trends in intrapartum practice; the struggle over "ways of knowing" in childbirth; challenges facing childbirth education; changes in birth environments; developments in normal labor, particularly in relation to the labor process paradigm; developments around the third and fourth stage of labor; the importance of attitude in the birth process; complementary therapies in labor; midwifery skills for normalizing unusual births; birth as a peak experience; sexuality in labor and birth; spirituality and labor care; feminist perspectives on childbirth; and a vision for birth in the 21st century. For women, midwives, and other advocates of drug-free, normal labor and vaginal birth. Annotation ©2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)