TRANSFORMED BY BIRTH
Cultivating Openness, Resilience, and Strength for the Life-Changing Journey from Pregnancy to Parenthood
by Britta Bushnell, PhD
Childbirth is more than just having a baby. Transformed by Birth invites you to discover childbirth as a transformational experience that alters your knowing of who you are and lasts long after pregnancy and birth are over.
Our culture has inundated us with limiting ideals that prevent us from fully engaging in the journey of pregnancy and childbirth—including a need for control and certainty, vilification of pain, and reverence for technology and intellectual knowledge, among others.
Transformed by Birth helps you clear away unwanted beliefs and behaviors so you can open to the meaning and power of this uniquely life-changing experience. It offers daily practices, rituals, exercises, and more to help you cultivate resilience, power, and connection during this transformative time.
Join me as we explore and prepare for the wild ride that is the metamorphic transformation into parenthood.
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Britta Bushnell, PhD, is a mother, veteran childbirth educator, celebrated speaker, mythologist, and specialist in childbirth, couples, and parenting.
For the last 20 years, Dr. Bushnell has worked with individuals and couples as they prepare for the life-changing experience of giving birth. Her work with parents has been enriched by her doctoral work in mythology and psychology, her years spent as a co-owner of Birthing From Within, as well as her dedicated study of solution-focused brief therapy, storytelling, and sustaining sexual vibrancy and helping romantic partnerships thrive even during parenthood. > read more.
Praise for Transformed by Birth
"Britta Bushnell has created a unique book that switches the conversation from the minutia of what happens when you have a baby to the identity-changing transformation that takes place when you become a parent. Its pages are filled with simple yet magnificently profound tools to help you truly prepare for the changes that take place in the mythic space of birth, or as Britta poignantly notes, that place “where you are no longer not a parent and not yet one either."
- Adriana Lozada, AdvCD(DONA), seasoned doula and host of the Birthful podcast
"Britta, you are a master at what you do!"
- P!NK, GRAMMY- winning singer-songwriter
"Master teacher, childbirth educator, and doula Britta Bushnell generously shares her most important revelations and strategies in preparing parents for childbirth, and in turn offers them a lifelong gift as they understand themselves anew."
- Kimberly Ann Johnson, author of The Fourth Trimester: A Postpartum Guide to Healing Your Body, Balancing Your Emotions, and Restoring Your Vitality
"Britta, your words are so needed in the conversation around birth and parenting. My first response to reading this book is ‘This is what I want every birthing person to hear.’ Your words are full of truth spoken in compassion. I appreciate your honesty about all kinds of births and parenting experiences having the ability to transform a person and removing the shame from the ‘non-ideal’ birth outcome."
- Sarah Obermeyer, CNM, PhD, WHNP-BC, IBCLC
"Britta’s love for reaching into the hearts of parents and her wide berth of knowledge —spanning everything from the ancient to the modern, from mythology to medical processes and everything in between— enabled us to grasp the monumental experience that awaited us. She aided us in stripping away cultural ideals of the “perfect birth,” and lead us toward better accepting the unique experience that was to be our very own. Nothing better prepared us for labor and parenting than did Britta. We will forever be grateful for her."
- Matt and Michelle Lauria, actor and singer
"Transformed by Birth is a book for pregnant parents, but especially couples, interested in facing birth and parenthood with a growth-mindset. It is for those who recognize that they are on the precipice of a transformative event and who wish to dive deeply into what the transformation entails."
Unchanged: "Transformed by Birth is a book for pregnant parents, but especially couples, interested in facing birth and parenthood with a growth-mindset. It is for those who recognize that they are on the precipice of a transformative event and who wish to dive deeply into what the transformation entails."
- Lamaze International
"Transformed by Birth offers an unshakable, empathic approach to birth preparation that emphasizes the strengths of openness and resilience. Britta Bushnell’s refreshingly original eight ideals for modern preparation guide thinking parents as they traverse two intertwined landscapes: their inner landscape against the backdrop of the medical environment. The book is easy to read, informative, thought-provoking, and uplifting."
- Pam England, author of Birthing From Within and Ancient Map for Modern Birth, and founder of the childbirth training organization Birthing From Within
"I have been a birth doula for over 17 years and have seen first-hand the life-changing transformation women and couples go through as they birth themselves as parents. Britta, you have explained this so beautifully as only you can in your own authentic, magical, mystical storytelling kind of away. Thank you, for writing such an important book!!!! I will be referring this book as a must-read for all!"
- Lori Bregman, author of The Mindful Mom-to-Be and Mamaste