What’s Right For Me?

‘What’s Right For Me? Making decisions in pregnancy and childbirth’ has been helping parents make the decisions that are right for them for nearly twenty years.

The latest, expanded and updated edition was published in September 2022.

Get your copy here:

Amazon   Waterstones   Wordery   GBBS

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What’s it all about?

The decisions that we make about our pregnancy and childbirth journeys can shape our experiences, health and lives for years to come, as well as those of our children and families.

But many of those decisions are complex, confusing and made harder by the fact that we live in a world full of options and opinions that can feel overwhelming.

What’s Right for Me? helps make pregnancy and birth-related decisions feel less daunting.

Where several of Sara’s other books guide you through the evidence on specific topics, this one helps you understand the bigger picture and learn about tools and ways of thinking which will help you make any decision you face with confidence.

In it, Sara covers everything from ideas about risk and different perspectives on birth, to how to interpret and consider information about tests, interventions and birth decisions.

You’ll find out about what the childbirth decision making landscape looks like, and why you’ll be better equipped if you have some tools to help you.

Discover how spending an hour or two thinking about your existing knowledge and previous experiences can help you make the decisions that are right for you.

Learn about easy to remember ways to help you work through the different aspects of the interventions you might be offered. These aren’t just for birth, either. They can be used to help you make health-related decisions for the rest of your life.

Dr Sara Wickham’s easy-to-understand explanations, real-life examples and top tips are like having a friendly expert by your side, helping you to understand your options, your rights and ultimately why your decisions should be about what’s right for you and only you.

Get your copy here:

Amazon   Waterstones   Wordery   GBBS

Kindle   Kobo   Apple   Other retailers


You can also order What’s Right For Me? from your local indie bookshop, the IBSN is 978-1-914465048.

*We have affiliate accounts with some of these retailers. Any profit goes to the Birth Information Project.

What are people saying?

“Everyone having a baby needs this book. The information in its pages is precious and vital. Sara is the ultimate information-sharer: experienced, knowledgeable and wise, at the same time as being honest, accessible and friendly.” 

Becky Reed, Midwife and Author.

“Dr Sara Wickham is renowned for writing fabulous books full of evidence-based information about options in maternity care. How perfect that she has also written the ultimate guide to making decisions!” 

Rachel Reed, Midwife and Author.

“Sara Wickham’s wide knowledge and talent for clear and concise writing makes this book a valuable asset for any woman who wants solid information based on good evidence and to be confident and well informed in decision-making.” Ina May Gaskin, Midwife and Author.

“This is a wonderful book. I love its chatty style and real respect for women’s rights.” Beverley Beech, Formerly Hon Chair, Association for Improvements in the Maternity Services.

“One of the things I love and appreciate most about Dr. Sara Wickham besides her wonderfully warm heart is the way she’s able to probe, deconstruct, decipher, and translate the abstruse data and directives that swirl around the childbearing family and their care providers – empowering us to ask our questions and think things through from a variety of perspectives. Whether you’re preparing to give birth now or simply hope to one day do so, I enthusiastically recommend this book. Our inimitable Sara strikes again with a tool designed to help birthing women determine what they truly need and want for themselves and their babies amidst a cacophony of options and opinions.” Kim Osterholzer, Midwife.

 “Sara’s writing is clear and concise and this is an easy to read and understand book. However it certainly never dumbs down the subject matter as so many pregnancy books tend to. Learning properly about birth gives you options to shape your birth experience as you wish. I give this book as standard to all my clients. I heartily recommend it.” Melanie Bearne, Hypnotherapist and Hypnobirthing Teacher.

See all the reviews on Amazon here.

Chapters and topics include:

  • What does the childbirth decision making landscape look like?
  • What is informed decision making?
  • Perspectives on childbirth
  • Putting risk into perspective
  • The risks of focusing on risk
  • Considering your own beliefs about life, birth and information
  • A few tips on weighing up information
  • Finding a path through the information jungle
  • Understanding birth intervention
  • Real-life birth decision making

The book also contains information on issues such as changing care provider and responding to fear-based information. It also includes expanded versions of Sara’s popular blog posts, ‘how to cancel a labour induction’ and ‘three things I wish every woman knew about pregnancy and birth knowledge’.

What’s new?

The very first version of this book was first published as a booklet in 2002. Sara wrote a significantly expanded, edition in 2018, and this third (2022) edition is even bigger and better.

New material for this edition includes:

  • A new chapter looking at rights, consent, options and informed decision making.
  • Find out the important difference between consenting and requesting.
  • Get the unpleasant but important truth about coercion and grooming in maternity care.
  • Expanded section on communicating with caregivers.
  • More on risk, and what you need to know in order to make the decisions that are right for you.
  • Why things ‘are as they are,’ or how the story of a nineteenth century doctor illustrates why there is such a gap between the evidence and the reality in western systems of maternity care.
  • What research into football (soccer) can teach us about practice, research and decision making.
  • An expanded chapter on finding and weighing up information.
  • The different types of birth intervention, and more on why following your gut, intuition or feelings can be as important as looking at the evidence.

About the Author

Dr Sara Wickham is a midwife, author, educator and researcher. She has been writing and lecturing about birth and midwifery for more than twenty years.

Sara is the author or editor of seventeen books and has edited three midwifery journals. She provides in-person and online educational and consultancy services for midwifery, medical and health-related practitioners and organisations around the world.

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