The Jewish Pregnancy Book: A Resource for the Soul, Body & Mind during Pregnancy, Birth & the First Three Months
Author: Daniel Judson
Women are increasingly looking to make their pregnancy and birth as a spiritually meaningful experience, but those looking for Jewish resources to help them have found little available.
The Jewish Pregnancy Book meets this need by creating and renewing Jewish prayers and rituals for this miraculous and challenging time in a woman's life. From reviving prayers our foremothers wrote and passed from one generation to the next, to investigating medical and ethical issues from a Jewish perspective, to exercising the body with pre-natal aleph-bet yoga, this groundbreaking handbook addresses the whole being: the mind, body, and soul of the pregnant Jewish woman:
For the mind-Medical information on topics such as fetal development, pre-natal testing, and potential pregnancy problems, as well as discussions from a liberal Jewish perspective on ethical issues such as selective reduction and home birth.
For the body-Pre-natal aleph-bet yoga, a unique blend of yoga and Hebrew letters.
For the soul-Ancient and modern prayers and rituals for each stage of pregnancy, as well as traditional Jewish wisdom on pregnancy.
Publishers Weekly
Anyone who's experienced childbirth understands that it may indeed seem a "world... about to be remade... heralded by a great flood." Now imagine embarking on the journey around a holiday table replete with family, friends, piles of food and stories long into the night. Warm and inviting, this Jewish guide to pregnancy and the first three months of life is a beautiful balance not only of soul, mind and body, but of ancient texts and contemporary prayer, folklore and modern medicine. Balanced also are the wide-ranging positions held by the Orthodox, Conservative and Reform movements on topics such as ensoulment, prenatal testing, selective reduction and mourning rituals in the event of miscarriage or fetal death. (While the authors celebrate this time in a couple's life, they are compassionately mindful and honest about the possibility of a less joyful outcome.) For each stage of pregnancy and beyond, they offer meditations, prayers and resources for any number of things that could transpire. Despite an abrupt transition, the book's yoga portion is enticing. Rapp makes yoga seem accessible to anyone, from seasoned marathoners to couch potatoes. Clear instructions, accompanied by photos for both early- and late-stage pregnancy, come with equally clear warnings about who should attempt which positions when. Though nurturing throughout, the book lacks any sort of conclusion, leaving the reader suddenly feeling like a favorite uncle has sneaked out the back door without saying goodbye. Although disappointing, ultimately this omission detracts very little from a delightful and spiritual celebration of life's beginnings. (Jan.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
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Pediatric Exercise Medicine: From Physiologic Principles to Health Care Application
Author: Oded Bar Or
Pediatric Exercise Medicine: From Physiologic Principles to Health Care Application draws from the most current research activity in the area to examine physical activity as a prerequisite to the good health and physical performance of children. The book also considers the effects of lack of exercise on children and the relevance of exercise to clinical pediatrics for children with chronic diseases.
While Pediatric Exercise Medicine: From Physiologic Principles to Health Care Application emphasizes clinically related issues, it provides comprehensive coverage of the child-exercise-health triad of importance to all professionals serving young people. The text identifies current research in the area of pediatric exercise. It also helps the reader to compare the exercise responses of healthy children to the responses of children with clinical impairments. In turn, readers will recognize the factors that can influence children's activity behavior, trainability, and performance.
The book contains three chapters related to the normal physiological and perceptual exercise responses of the healthy child. The next nine chapters consider the effects of exercise on children with clinical impairments, including asthma, diabetes, cerebral palsy, and obesity.
A special feature is the coverage of children's trainability and the factors that can influence performance. The information, including environmental stressors on children, will be of interest to scholars and students as well as to coaches working in this area.
The book also has these features:
• Extensive graphic interpretation of the data—more than 250 illustrations
• Helpful reference tables
• Six appendixes on normative data, methods, energy-equivalent tables for different activities, scaling for body size, and a glossary of terms.
In Pediatric Exercise Medicine: From Physiologic Principles to Health Care Application, you'll find content you can apply in your daily work as a therapist, exercise scientist, physician, or other professional. You'll also find evidence-based rationale for the need for physical activity as a preventive measure and treatment of disease in children.
About the Authors
Oded Bar-Or, MD, is a professor of pediatrics and founder and director of the Children's Exercise and Nutrition Centre at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada. For more than 35 years he has conducted research focused on the effects of physical activity and inactivity on the health, well-being, and physical performance of healthy children and those with chronic diseases. He received his MD degree from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel.
Dr. Bar-Or served as president of the Canadian Association of Sports Sciences, president of the International Council for Physical Fitness Research, and vice president of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM). He chairs the Foundation for Active Healthy Kids.
A widely published author, he earned the ACSM's Citation Award in 1997 and the North American Society for Pediatric Medicine's Honor Award in 1998. In 2000, he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Blaise Pascal in France.
Thomas Rowland, MD, is director of pediatric cardiology at the Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Massachusetts, where he established an exercise-testing laboratory. He is a pediatric cardiologist with extensive research experience in the exercise physiology of children.
Dr. Rowland is author of Developmental Exercise Physiology (1996) and Pediatric Laboratory Exercise Testing: Clinical Guidelines (1993) and editor of Pediatric Exercise Science. He is a former president of the North American Society for Pediatric Exercise Medicine (NASPEM) and a former member of the board of trustees of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM). He is a former president of the New England Chapter of the ACSM and received the Honor Award in 1993.
Dr. Rowland received BS and MD degrees from the University of Michigan in 1965 and 1969.