On Monday, April 7, at 7:00 p.m., local author and women’s health advocate Elayne Clift will be at Brooks Memorial Library in Brattleboro to read from and discuss her latest book, with Christine Morton, Birth Ambassadors: Doulas and the Re-emergence of Woman-supported Birth in America.
Published by Praeclarus Press in January, the book about women who offer physical and emotional support to birthing mothers, is already garnering rave reviews. Clift, a volunteer doula at Brattleboro Memorial Hospital’s Birth Center, will be joined by doula Carol Schnabel, volunteer coordinator of the Doula Program at the hospital, and a contributor to the book.
“This book is THE definitive work on doulas in the United States,”says Robbie Davis-Floyd, an anthropologist and author of Birth as an American Rite of Passage. “It immediately draws readers into the story of doulas in the U.S. and reveals the social movement that arose to support their incorporation into American hospital birth. …Individual stories written by mothers and doulas bring life to their experiences, and photos illuminate the stories even further. …This fascinating book compels readers to work hard to make birth more humanistic, more compassionate, more physiological, and more successful in terms of healthy babies and empowered mothers and families.”
