Book excerpt: Bonding Before Birth combines up-to-the-minute research with enlightened and compassionate wisdom. This book explores what science knows about babies in the womb and explains why mother-baby bonding is so vital for the future well-being of mother, father, and baby. Dr. Miriam Stoppard writes about the feelings that expectant parents experience during the first, second and third trimesters and promotes the significance of rites of passage through pregnancy, from adjusting to the changes that parenthood brings to celebrating your future as a family. The emotional and psychological elements of pregnancy are often overlooked in favor of hard facts and scientific evidence. This book redresses the balance and turns its attention to the conflicting feelings of exhilaration and anxiety, dreams and fears that so often characterize the nine months of pregnancy and gives parents-to-be inspiring guidance through these uncharted waters.