The overwhelming majority of women want to give birth naturally. Yet they want to do it in a hospital setting, where technology and medical expertise make them feel safe. Paradoxically, it is precisely this technology and expertise that make natural birth a rare occurrence in most hospitals. In The Birth Conspiracy, Rivka Cymbalist draws upon her experience at hundreds of births to provide an answer to the question of how women can give birth naturally in hospitals. The key to this answer is the doula.

Who or what is a doula? Put simply, someone who accompanies a woman through pregnancy, labor and the birth of her child. But there much more to the doula, and The Birth Conspiracy provides a ground-breaking re-invention of the role of the humble birth companion.

The Curioso is a persona of the Renaissance. Curious, cultured, interested in just about everything, he is a collector, a sophisticated dilettante, the alter ego of the Renaissance Man. He is also the extinct ancestor of modern technological man, who, is his quest for increasingly specialized knowledge, has literally blasted him off our intellectual radar.

Why is he trying to make a comeback?

In this age of information we are truly dazzled by the amount of data at our fingertips. But how much do we really know? How qualified are we to make important decisions such as when to buy a house, why believe in God, how to have a baby, what to eat for supper? Somehow, being swamped with millions of snippets of information seems to make things harder, more complicated. We scratch the surface with our browsers but do we feel wiser?