Rating: 
Summary: Puuulllleeeaase!!
Review: Here I am, newly pregnant, feeling ill 24x7, miserable and then I open this book. OMG!!!! Help me! Do I feel like shopping for bread made with only natural, unbleached wheat? Do I consider having a bagel once a week a TREAT????? This book steals the only pleasure a pregnant woman has.... EATING GOOD FOOD.
Rating:
Summary: The "Total" Pregnant Woman
Review: Anyone familiar with this classic book of the 1960 (The Total Woman)will recognize its' tenents in this unrealistic and patronizing book. I recently gave birth to a healthy 9 lb baby, and looking back the suggestions in this book are arrogant and offensive. Pregnant people gain weight at different rates, and this book takes a very judgemental attitude toward people who gain more than the "recommended" amount. Pregnant people are beautiful and generally gain weight everywhere, regardless of how carefully they eat. Buying into this unrealistic mindset just sets a prospective mother up for being at the mercy of so-called "experts". For some people, who live on chips and soda, perhaps this book will be corrective and helpful. For the rest of us, who know better than to drink or smoke or do drugs or live exclusively on bacon and doughnuts when pregnant, our time preparing for the birth of our children can be much better spent than by reading this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Get Real!
Review: I received this book from a well meaning friend, but I have to say that this book, if anything, frustrated me and made me angry. I have been told that before pregnancy, that I had a fairly healthy diat. Not so according to this book. I am not talking about alcohol, cigarrettes and caffeine (which I gave up when I started trying). No, this book warns you of such "forbidden fruits" as ice cream, cookies and the dreaded maple syrup. These, among others, are to be avoided at all costs. In addition, there are suggestions for "selective cheating." You can cheat, not more than once a week, with some of the following foods: white pasta, frozen yogurt, and pizza. Then after they tell you all the normal foods that you can't eat, they tell you that being on a budget or a time crunch is no excuse for not following their extreme suggestions. I am all for good, constructive advice to help me do well during my pregnancy, and I will try some of the recipies, but their version of eating well during pregnancy could only work for me if I were living in a health food commune or 100 years ago. Do yourself and your pregnant friends a favor and forgo this book!
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Summary: No alcohol?!?!?
Review: I don't see how eating affects your baby. I mean the baby isn't even born yet. When I was pregnant I still wanted to have fun. I did cut back on drinking, but to try to completely eliminate drinking and smoking!?!?! Come on! What else are you supposed to due on Friday/Saturday night? What a silly book! I did not follow any of the rules. Delivery is so much easier with a low birth weight baby. I say a few drinks/smokes a week can't harm nobody. But I would never fill my baby's bottle with whiskey. You gotta draw the line somewhere.
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Summary: Isnt't being pregnant hard enough?
Review: I try to to eat very healthfully and have had two kids (that I try to feed in a healthful manner). This book will just riase your blood pressure and your guilt level. Don't drink alcohol, don't smoke, and stay out of the doughnut shop except on Saturdays are easier to follow rules and will have about the same impact on your pregnancy's outcome (i.e. a healthy baby). I was glad to find out, though, that one piece of pumpkin pie provides 3 servings of orange-yellow vegetables.
Rating: 
Summary: Design your own food pyramid
Review: I found this book extremely useful as I tried to put together a balanced vegetarian diet during my pregnancy. It explains the necessary nutrients and lists how much of which foods you need to eat to get them. It gets pretty easy to pick out foods that satisfy several needs at once, and to develop your own rules of thumb for putting together a daily diet -- similar to the "four food groups" or "food pyramid" we are more familiar with.I used my own judgement on the "no white flour or sugar ever" recommendation. I did not have much trouble (after the first trimester, anyway) incorporating what I learned into my daily diet. If you are considering buying "Vegetarian Pregnancy", for advice on how to eat while you are pregnant, buy this book instead.
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Summary: What to eat if you want to be perfect...
Review: Unlike "What to Expect When You're Expecting", to which I gave 5 stars, I found this book ridiculous! For example, eating a bagel is considered a "cheat" and should only be done in extreme moderation (like once a month). I felt that if I tried to follow the eating guidelines set up in this book I would be destined to fail, because they suggest such a strict diet. I doubt that any pregnant woman with normal cravings would succeed according to the authors of this useless book. I quickly gave this one away.
Rating:
Summary: what to eat during pregnancy if you are totally unrealistic!
Review: i found this book to be very discouraging and unrealistic to the majority of pregnant women. if one thinks about nutrition during pregnancy realistically, in addition to all the other demands that a pregnant woman has on her, it is just not a realistic option that a woman is going to spend all of her time on her feet cooking with whole grains and no sugars like they depict on the cover! how do i know? simple. i have given birth twice and both times i was either busy with college or raising a child to cook like they do in this book! i ate from the recommended food groups for each pregnancy, plus took a prenatal vitamin with iron. and my kids were respectively 8 lb 4 oz and 7 lb 14 oz (more than what their kids weighed according to the book). and they are above average intelligence, and have never had life threatening health problems. do yourself a favor if you are pregnant. find a nutritionist (maybe WIC) and don't exhaust yourself by trying to be "super pregnant lady". you'll feel a lot better
Rating:
Summary: What the heck are they talking about?
Review: The food plan is so confusing that I gave up before I even began.This is how they try to explain how much "whole grains and otherconcentrated complex carbohydrates" to have in a day. "Have four or five servings of one of the following daily. Do not count unenriched breads, cereals, or flours at all, and count enriched ones only rarely." Oh, so if I eat a piece of bread or have cereal that isn't a "whole grain food" I shouldn't count it toward my daily total of foods and just continue to stuff my face? Also, their use of the word "cheating" really rubs me the wrong way. "Cheat no more than once a month with no more than one serving of the following - cake, pudding, etc." I don't think these woman know the first thing about the psychological aspects of eating healthy. They bugged me most on the very first page of the book where they wrote that in "century's past it was believed that God's will was the determining factor to a healthy baby." It's important to eat healthy ladies, but God still has a lot more to do with it than following your strict diet does! END
Rating: 
Summary: For mothers looking for the very best for their babies
Review: This book contains all the necessary guidelines for an expectant mother to provide her baby (and herself) with the best nourishment during pregnancy. It's an excellent book. It implies work and strong will, and also sacrifice, but if you want your baby to get the best of everything, you'll have to work for it - it's not for free. To me, all efforts are worth my baby's health. I highly recommend it to expectant mothers who are unselfish and smart enough to work for the health of their babies. This book will either make you change your eating habits and have a healthy pregnancy resulting in a healthy baby, or hate the authors (or maybe yourself for not being able to meet the standards).
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