What to Expect When You're Expecting

Rating:
Summary: Decent Pregnancy Guide
Review: I thought this book was very useful during my first pregnancy. I am now pregnant with my second baby and am continuing to refer to this book if I have questions. I have to admit the Pregnancy Diet is a little bit of a joke which is why I only gave it 4 stars. I am on prenatal vitamins like most women and feel no need to worry myself to death about what I eat. I use common sense to make healthy food choices. I noticed a lot of reviewers said this book made them paranoid. I, personally, want to be informed of what could go wrong with my pregnancy however rare the case may be...and this book does let you know how rare certain conditons and problems are. This book didn't make me feel like a moron...like some reviewers say. If you let a BOOK make you feel like a moron, then that's your problem and not the authors'. The authors wrote the book assuming people don't know anything about pregnancy. I think that is a good approach to writing an information-based book. I would tell any pregnant woman to buy this book.

Rating:
Summary: First Time Fathers don't buy this Book for the Mother
Review: This book plain makes your parinoid. What you don't know will not hurt you. This book is down right terrifying. I am not sure why its on every women's to read list when they are expecting. Nothing like giving a moody women a book with a list of everything that could possibly go wrong. There is such a slim chance that anything will go wrong that its not worth the high blood pressure. Find a good doctor and ask questions.

Rating:
Summary: Good resource -- but don't let it make you feel guilty!!
Review: I have owned 2 copies of this book -- one for each of my first two pregnancies. I devoured it during my first pregnancy, but ended up tossing it because of how "tsk-tsk" the authors are toward women who might even consider eating a piece of chocolate cake (all that sugar? Think of the baby!), during pregnancy (even if that's all you can manage to keep down during the first trimester). Once you've actually been through a real pregnancy, you realize how differently reality is from the ideal. You eat WHAT you can, WHEN you can. And if your midwife gives you a prescription to help relieve your nausea, YOU TAKE IT, with gratitude!

At the start of my second pregnancy, however, I realized how easy it was to find things in What to Expect, that the chronological layout really is quite useful. So I ended up buying another copy (used).

All in all, I do recommend it as one of the better pregnancy reference books, although I do have reservations about it simply due to the guilt-inducing nature of the opinions of the authors. Be forewarned: the authors seem to think we are all capable of eating a perfectly balanced diet everyday (morning sickness anyone?), we should not even CONSIDER taking anything that might help relieve nausea, and we should all expect to have a perfectly wonderful pregnancy experience! All of this can be a little heavy handed, especially for women in their first pregnancy who find that pregnancy is not always all it's idealized to be.

I am in my third pregnancy (I have 2 wonderful, healthy children) and will probably not need to resort to pregnancy books this time. Unless someone happens to give me a used copy of What to Expect When You're Expecting.

Rating:
Summary: I couldn't get enough info!
Review: During my pregnancy, I was a sponge for knowledge! I thought this book was great, except sometimes it left me with a thirst for more. A wonderful book to accompany it, is "My Pregnancy, Week by Week".

Rating:
Summary: Don't Expect this Book to be much Help
Review: I am an aspiring midwife and have been doing a big study on the mainstream literature made available to expectant parents as an indendent study at my college. For each book I read I write a review. Here is what I felt about this book:
I read this book because the midwives I have talked to, as well as some moms, told me it was awful. Then someone stuck up for it telling me that it was a pioneer in its day. I wanted to find out for myself. I found that times indeed do change and this book is now far from being a pioneer. With each book I read I take notes of interesting facts etc. My notes on this book are full of sudden outbursts on the frustration this book is stirring in me. There is a steady air of assumption that the reader/mother is exceedingly ignorant. I tried very hard to be objective and put myself in the place of the uninformed, expectant mother reading this as her first and/or prime source of information. A daunting prospect. It has a very cheery, overly settling, repetitive style while at the same time telling you everything that could possibly go wrong. This book would only be fitting for the most neurotic of women, and even then I think it would do anything but ease her stress. It is good in reassuring you that the day to day aches and pains that come with pregnancy are normal. This book should only be used by already informed and knowledgeable women, and certainly not as an only source by any women. I do not see that it would do anyone much good and I would not recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Oh, For a Zero Stars Rating
Review: A more appropriate title for this book would be, What to Eat When You're Expecting If You Have an Eating Disorder.

Weighing yourself everyday? Ordering broiled meat without sauce in restaurants? "Cheating" by eating a bagel with cream cheese? Sounds an awful lot like the last diet I went on. I brought this book into an appointment with my OB, who said, "Yes, I looked at that book when I was pregnant. I remember thinking, I'm glad I'm a physician, or this would really freak me out."

Expectant Moms: Please, please, do not buy this book. Don't read it. Eat like a healthy, reasonable, HUNGRY human being and follow your doctor's advice. Don't listen to advocates for "a good looking pregnancy," or an author who boasts about gaining only twenty pounds during her pregnancy (five pounds less than the minimum recommendation).

There's enough pressure in this culture to be thin during our ordinary lives. Let's not take it to the point of striving to be thin while we're pregnant. Shame, shame on Heidi Murkoff.

Rating:
Summary: Dr. Michael L. Johnson
Review: My wife and I have 5 children, 4 of which were born at home with a midwife (I'm not that kind of doctor). Currently, our children are ages 18,16,14,11,and 21 months(no, that is not a typo). I mention all of this to let you know that I have some expertise in the birthing of children. If you are a new mother to be, you need to have this book in your personal library. It is packed with useful information that every mom AND dad need to know.

Dr. Michael L. Johnson author of "What Do You Do When the Medications Don't Work--A Non-Drug Treatment of Dizziness, Migraine Headaches, Fibromyalgia, and Other Chronic Conditions".

Rating:
Summary: Preachy and Condescending
Review: This book is unfortunately considered the pregnancy bible of the moment. It is preachy, condescending, and treats women like they can't think for themselves. The diet recommendations are a bit absurd, and not practical in any way.

I would recommend Girlfriend's Guide to Prenancy well above this one.

Rating:
Summary: Didn't meet my expectations
Review: I bought this book with my first pregnancy because "it" was supposed to be the best pregnancy book out there. I was extremely upset with the book once I started reading through it. If I hadn't ever heard anything about it I probably wouldn't have been so disappointed. I used this book for a fraction of my first pregnancy and only once on my second. I was looking for a book that told me about my baby. I wanted to know exactly what my baby was doing during that week. This book is all about your body and the symptoms you are feeling. It has nothing to do with the baby. I ended up using this book in conjuction with "Your pregnancy week by week". Neither books cover everything. If you are wanting to see what your baby looks like at a certain week in your pregnancy or find out how it's developing then this book is not for you. However, my friend loved this book. She wanted to know about her symptoms and how long certain things would last or what to look for so this book was for her. The question of whether this book is for you depends on what you are looking for in a pregnancy book. Also even if you are just looking for a book about your symptoms you may find that the information from you doctor or off the internet will be more useful. This book has a lot of information regarding your symptoms but it doesn't cover everything.

Rating:
Summary: Save your money
Review: I bought this book with my first pregnancy, since it was recommended by my OB at the time, and since I'd heard it touted as THE essential pregnancy book to read. I found a lot of the information in the book to be incredibly frightening, and just stressed me out even more! The only parts I found to be even somewhat "reassuring" where the sections that tell how big the baby is and what is developing. However, like I said earlier, if you want to be scared to death over what can go wrong then you might just want to pick this book up anyways. I would not recommend this book to any of my friends or family. I only gave it three stars because it is jam-packed with information. However I did not find much of it to be of use. If you want a good pregnancy book, there are plenty of others out there, as some of the other reviewers suggested. Despite its popularity, though, I do not think "What to Expect" is one of them. If you must read it, borrow it from the library or a friend-save your money.