When a woman is denied all choice - feels as if she has been swallowed up by a vast machine and spat out at the other end with a baby - how can she come to terms with that ordeal? One new mother in twenty is diagnosed with traumatic stress after childbirth. In ''Birth Crisis'' Sheila Kitzinger explores the disempowerment and anxiety experienced by these women. Key topics discussed include: increasing intervention in pregnancy; the shift in emphasis from relationships to technology in childbirth; how family, friends and professional caregivers can reach out to traumatized mothers; how women can work through stress to understand themselves more deeply and grow in emotional maturity; how care and the medical system needs to be changed. ''Birth Crisis'' draws on mothers' voices and real-life experiences to explore the suffering after childbirth which has, until now, been brushed under the carpet. It is a fascinating and useful resource for student and practicing midwives, all health professionals, and women and their families who want to learn how to overcome a traumatic birth.