|  When the men of Northern India refused to endanger their woods-based jobs by opposing the clearcutting of the last forests at the foot of the Himalayas, it was the women who stopped it. Recognizing that they were not only losing the fuel they cook with, but the sacred presence of the trees, they set aside their immediate economic concerns and took a stand. When no one would listen to these “impractical, emotional” women, and their petitions went ignored, they literally wrapped themselves around the trees. The women did not merely think, “There goes my beautiful scenery.” They did not accept the traditionally held belief that the lower caste, and women in particular, have no power. They knew their power came from the trees themselves, and from the Devas within all living things. By hugging the trees, they said to their saw-wielding relatives, to the regional and national governments, and to thousands of years of patriarchal destruction, “This tree’s flesh is my flesh. When you cut into these trees, you are cutting into my guts.”
— Jesse Wolf Hardin Most books on emergency or wilderness medicine do not deal thoroughly with childbirth – the former because they assume that you are heading for a hospital emergency department anyway, and the latter because ... well, I don’t know why. For example, the otherwise excellent Wilderness First Aid, sponsored by the National Safety Council and the Wilderness Medical Society, gives a sketchy account of a normal birth, but gives no help with, say, a breech birth, which is where a wilderness caregiver is most likely to panic. Such books as the NOLS and Outward Bound manuals don’t deal with childbirth at all.
 Elizabeth Davis, Heart and Hands: A Midwife's Guide to Pregnancy and Birth (Berkeley CA: Ten Speed Press, 1998), ISBN 0-89087-838-2. This is a general and comprehensive guide to the art and practice of midwifery for both midwives and expecting parents. The classic text has been expanded to include sections on the different types of midwifes, becoming a midwife, national certification, informed consent, and other legal issues, as well as homeopathy and herbal therapy, sexual issues during pregnancy, and fetal development. The book has information for the apprentice midwife, such as lists of midwifery schools and organizations, and has detailed practical descriptions of everything from pelvemetry to suturing. It even includes forms and checklists to assist in record keeping. You may not want to become a midwife, but if the wilderness ever forces the role on you, this is a good book to have read.
 Ina May Gaskin, Spiritual Midwifery (Summertown TN: The Book Publishing Company, 1990), ISBN 0-913990-63-9. You are probably all too young to remember Stephen Gaskin and his Caravan, one of the archetypal hippie communities of the 1960s. Ina May Gaskin is his wife, and the first half of her book is a series of huggy accounts of spiritual birthing experiences. If your tolerance for this sort of thing is low, you can just rip the book in half along the spine and throw out the first 274 pages. But save the rest. Those pages are full of useful facts and helpful illustrations, including photographs, concerning all facets of normal and complicated deliveries in a setting far from ordinary hospital care. This has been a classic book on home birth since 1977, and this edition contains updated information on the safety of natural childbirth, new birthing stories, and the most recent statistics on births managed by The Farm Midwives.
 Susan Klein, et al., A Book for Midwives (Palo Alto, CA: The Hesperian Foundation 1983), ISBN 0-942364-22-8. This book is one of the outstanding texts from the Hesperian Foundation designed for village health workers in Third World countries. It is written for midwives, traditional birth attendants, health care workers, and lay people who deal with pregnancy and childbirth in Third-World conditions. The book emphasizes prevention, nutrition, family planning, breastfeeding, and low-cost homemade equipment as well as childbirth and its complications. If you have only one book on wilderness midwifery, this should be it. Highly recommended.
 Judith H. Poole, et al., Crisis OB (St. Louis MO: Mosby-Year Book, Inc., 1995), Part I: Emergency And Complicated Deliveries, ISBN 0-8151-6827-6; Part II: Hemorrhagic Disorders In Pregnancy, ISBN 0-8151-6829-2. These are actually little pamphlets intended to accompany videotapes, but which can be purchased separately. The pamphlets and videotapes are intended for nurses, presuppose a nursing background, and assume the availability of sophisticated hospital services; the pamphlets themselves are concise outlines rather than texts. With all that said, these pamphlets have excellent illustrations, both line drawings and photographs, cover most of the things that can go wrong in pregnancy and childbirth, and often provide solutions adaptable to a wilderness or survival situation.
 Helen Varney, Varney’s Midwifery (Sudbury MA: Jones & Bartlett, 1996), ISBN 0-86720-748-5. This is the basic comprehensive midwifery text, intended for the training of professional midwives – almost a thousand pages long, and very expensive. It includes material on the general healthcare of women; antepartum, intrapartum and postpartum care; lesbian and bisexual women; substance abuse; and newborn care. The last section describes specific skills used by midwives. Some chapters tend to focus on specific issues and ignore broader subjects – for example, midlife health, with nothing on reproductive issues among teenagers; exercise rather an overall chapter on health promotion; and a chapter on HIV that could also encompass other chronic health conditions and their influence on reproductive health. Still, this is the best textbook out there on the practice of midwifery in the United States..
 Linda Wheeler, Nurse-Midwifery Handbook: A Practical Guide To Prenatal & Postpartum Care (Philadelphia PA: Lippincott-Raven Publishers, 1997), ISBN 0-397-55360-9. There is nothing in here about childbirth itself. Instead, the book focuses on problems that can arise before and after the birth. There are several tables of questions to ask patients, the most useful of which relate to difficult subjects such as abuse, sexuality, drug, alcohol, and tobacco use. There are appendices containing sample genetic screens and history forms as well as information on nutrition, female circumcision, abuse, and a lot of excellent childbirth education material. The book differs too in addressing psychosocial and cultural needs and practices of women, suggesting different ways to discuss these issues with clients. While the book assumes the availability of relatively sophisticated resources, it can be helpful to the wilderness or survival caregiver by providing a comprehensive overview of things to watch out for.
 Gregory J. White, Emergency Childbirth: A Manual (Marble Hill MO: NAPSAC International, 1998), ISBN 0-934426-87-2. This is the fourteenth printing of a manual originally published by the Police Training Foundation in Franklin Park, Illinois. NAPSAC – the International Association of Parents and Professionals for Safe Alternatives in Childbirth – obtained publication rights in 1993. As you would expect from a police publication, this is a no-nonsense straightforward manual of home and roadside childbirth. The book is very reassuring, since it lets you know that most childbirth is without incident, and most emergencies can be handled. As the book itself says, “When in doubt, do nothing.” It is just fifty pages or so of large type. This is highly recommended.
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