Ever since the birth of her third child in 1991, Margaret Jowitt has been working towards making birth a safer and more rewarding experience for mothers and their babies. After a first degree in music and psychology, she gained a MPhil from Keele in 1998, researching into Mothers' Experience of Birth at Home and in Hospital. Her first book, Childbirth Unmasked, looked at the the anatomy and physiology of birth, showing how stress hormones conflict with birth hormones. Since 1996 she has edited Midwifery Matters, the magazine of the Association of Radical Midwives. She considers that prevention is better than cure and believes that good midwifery care based on the needs of the individual woman is the key to safer childbirth.