How to Have a Good Birth?
A Natural Birth Guide from a Mother of Five.
Practical birth tips to prepare for labor, manage pain, and feel confident
How can you have a good birth? There is no single way to have a good birth, but preparing for labor, understanding your options, learning practical coping tools, and feeling supported can help you approach birth with greater confidence.
I’m a mother of five, and I originally wrote this guide for my own daughters. Now I’m sharing it with you.
Don’t Push: A Natural Birth Guide
This practical guide offers simple tools to help you prepare for birth, work through fear, manage labor pain, and feel more in control of your experience.
Inside, you’ll discover practical birth tips and natural coping strategies to help you:
Prepare mentally and emotionally for labor
Work through fear and build confidence
Understand how to cope with contractions
Use simple tools to manage pain and discomfort
Feel more informed about your birth choices
Approach birth with greater calm and confidence
Whether you’re planning a natural birth, hoping to avoid unnecessary fear around labor, or simply want to feel more prepared, this guide is here to support you.
My hope is that you finish feeling less afraid, more informed, and better equipped to have a birth experience you love.
This guide shares personal experience and practical preparation tools. Every birth is different, and individualized medical advice should come from your qualified maternity care team.
Don’t Push is a short, practical guide based on five births, with ten lessons to help you prepare for birth, work through fear and pain, get the support you need, and know what to do when it matters.
Learn how to:
prepare yourself before labor
work through fear
work with pain rather than resist it
know how your partner can really help
use simple practical techniques during labor
trust your body
prepare for the moments after birth
rest and recover
Ten lessons from five births. Short, practical, no fluff.
Have a
Birth Experience
You Love
ABOUT THE BOOK
Why “Don’t Push”?
Every TV show in the world seems to show the same scene: a woman lying on her back, surrounded by a medical team, screaming at her to push. But birth doesn't have to look like that.
If you are a healthy woman having an uncomplicated birth, your midwife and partner may be enough. You are probably more comfortable in another position than lying on your back, and your body does the pushing with the contractions. You don't have to force your baby out.
Most of the work of labor is learning to stay out of the way and let your body do its thing.
What Do You Actually Need to Know Before Giving Birth?
BEFORE
Preparing for birth means preparing yourself, your space, and the people around you. The book covers educating yourself, working through your fears, practicing visualization, choosing your birth team, and preparing your birth room.
DURING
The book looks at what is happening in your body, how to work with the process of contractions, how to approach pain, and what to expect as your baby is born.
AFTER
The book also covers the first moments with your baby, what happens with the placenta after birth, why you might cry like a waterfall, and why rest is so important after birth.
IS THIS BOOK FOR YOU?
Are you pregnant? Then yes.
You may be planning a home birth, a hospital birth, or you may already know you want an epidural.
You can still take control of large parts of the process.
About the Author
Congratulations on your pregnancy!
My name is Yifat Gat. I am a painter, a mother of five unschooled children living in the south of France. I have given birth five times—twice in a hospital and three times at home, including one unassisted birth.
What I learned through these experiences is that simple things can make a big difference in reducing pain during birth. I just wish this information were more widely known!
This is the book I wrote for my girls, now that they are grown, bringing together everything I learned from my midwives, my own experiences, and my research.
I hope you find it useful, and I wish you a beautiful and empowering birth experience.
Want to collab? here is my contact form
4.9 stars by 304 customers
"I'm pregnant with my first baby, and this book made me feel so much more prepared for birth. Really thank you! I especially loved the parts about focus, contractions, and the role of your partner. I feel much more ready."
— Mannon"I wish someone had given me this at the beginning of my pregnancy. I spent so many evenings in pure anxiety — I didn't know it was information I could use. I feel much more confident about our birth. Before, I mostly thought about the pain. Now I think about focus, relaxation, and knowing what to do at each stage. It also helped my partner understand how he can actually support me instead of just standing there wondering what to do!"
— Peggy"I found this book incredibly reassuring. There are so many things people tell you about birth, and it can become overwhelming very quickly. This book cuts through all of that and gives you practical things to focus on. I've highlighted so many pages already. I feel much more prepared and much less afraid."
— Lea