A guide providing information on how to be at your best during pregnancy and how to discover your own instinctive potential to give birth actively to your baby. The authors explain that this active participation can be achieved through a series of simple exercises that teach breathing awareness, how to relax and loosen muscles and to overcome stress and tension during pregnancy and labour. The book also includes exercises for after the birth to help you recover and regain your figure, as well as a chapter on the first few weeks of motherhood, breastfeeding and babycare. It is considered to be the first book to suggest exercises that prepare a wonan's body to adopt natural squatting and kneeling positions, which may be used for labour and birth, and which are illustrated by photographs of women giving birth actively, both at home and in hospital. Jane Balaskas trained as an ante-natal teacher with the National Childbirth Trust and Arthur Balaskas is one an authority on physical culture.