Hachayim Achrei Ha'Leida = Life After Birth / The turmoil of new motherhood is still a taboo subject. After her first baby, author Kate Figes was unprepared for the physical, sensory, emotional, and psychological upheaval that followed it. She imagined she would carry on working, thinking, feeling, and socializing as usual and felt inadequate as a mother and as a woman when she didn't. Life After Birth is the first thoroughly honest book to examine the transition into motherhood. Using interviews, medical and anthropological research, and her own experience, Figes tackles problems facing new moms such as: Experiencing anger and hostility toward the child after expecting to feel unconditional love; how the attitudes of friends, both childless and with children, change toward the new mother; Feeling bone-tired and unsexual even after the infant sleeps through the night. Life After Birth illuminates these realities so that new mothers will feel reassured, less alone, and ready to enjoy motherhood.
