EDITOR: Thank you for your excellent review of my book, Sharing Birth: A Fa- ther’s Guide to Giving Sufiport During Labor (Volume 31, Number 4, July/August 1986). I must, how- ever, correct an error which, though it is perhaps just a typographical mis- take, gives readers a grave miscon- ception about my book.

The review quotes me as saying that “anyone, male or female, having given birth or not, can be a good support person provided she or he has had experience at birth.” This statement, not made in Sharing

Birth, is precisely the opposite of what I want to convey in my book.

I wrote Sharing Birth to show couples how to reduce the fear and pain of labor with effective labor support. One.of my main goals is to reassure fathers-or anyone plan- ning to help a childbearing mother -that it is not necessary to have any experience at birth to reduce the fear and pain of a mother’s labor.

The father is bound to be anxious at the birth of his own child. How- ever, he can still help his partner as he shares the childbearing miracle. He brings out the mother’s inner

strength by encouraging her when her spirits are failing, by cuddling and caressing her when she needs to be held, and by blanketing her with his nurturing presence. To do this he should be well-informed and know what to expect. However, he needn’t have prior experience.

This point is so essential to Sharing Birth that I must ask you to correct it in a future Journal.

Again, thank you for the review.

Carl Jones

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Copyright 0 1987 by the American College of Nurse-Midwives

Journal of Nurse-Midwifery ??Vol. 32, No. 2, March/April 1987

0091-2182/87/$03.50