Rating: 
Summary: GREAT info - even when just trying to concieve!
Review: After reading a few "high level" books on nutrition and pregnancy, I was SO excited to pick up "Nutrition for a Healthy Pregnancy." (Although I am not pregnant, we are trying to concieve our first child.)Not only was the text **easy** to read and understand, the author didn't just say "get more iron in your diet" or "eat more whole grain foods" (like other books I've read)- the author actually provided list after list of what (realistic) foods one could add to their diet to get the vitamins and minerals. This was great for a "nutrition newbie" like me! I have always thought that pregnancy was a time for a woman to eat as much ice cream, candy, pickles, etc. or WHATever she was craving. However, this book was a wake-up call: Nutrition is essential for the baby's health. I enjoyed learning about what nutrients were essential - and WHEN they are essential - from conception all the way past birth. I also enjoyed learning WHY all these minerals and vitamins were needed for each stage of the baby's development. Women, if you are even THINKING about trying to concieve a baby, get this book! If you're already pregnant, it's not too late to read up and change your habits for the sake of your health - and your baby's health!
Rating:
Summary: GREAT info - even when just trying to concieve!
Review: After reading a few "high level" books on nutrition and pregnancy, I was SO excited to pick up "Nutrition for a Healthy Pregnancy." (Although I am not pregnant, we are trying to concieve our first child.) Not only was the text **easy** to read and understand, the author didn't just say "get more iron in your diet" or "eat more whole grain foods" (like other books I've read)- the author actually provided list after list of what (realistic) foods one could add to their diet to get the vitamins and minerals. This was great for a "nutrition newbie" like me! I have always thought that pregnancy was a time for a woman to eat as much ice cream, candy, pickles, etc. or WHATever she was craving. However, this book was a wake-up call: Nutrition is essential for the baby's health. I enjoyed learning about what nutrients were essential - and WHEN they are essential - from conception all the way past birth. I also enjoyed learning WHY all these minerals and vitamins were needed for each stage of the baby's development. Women, if you are even THINKING about trying to concieve a baby, get this book! If you're already pregnant, it's not too late to read up and change your habits for the sake of your health - and your baby's health!
Rating:
Summary: Real World Nutritional Advice, Including Supplements
Review: Elizabeth Somer's Pregnancy Nutrition Book is a breath of common sense that is much needed. Most nutritionists spend all their time trying to persuade everyone that all that is needed in pregnancy is the proverbial good balanced diet. Most nutritionists badmouth supplements for fear that people will just swallow pills and eat junk. As a reaction to the overuse of supplements most academics decry all supplements. (The official RDA of folate was lowered from 0.4 mg in 1970 to 0.2 mg in 1980 just because it is difficult to get more than 0.2 mg in the diet, so they lowered it so not to have to admit the need for supplements, even though the early reports from England about neural tube defect sparing were already published.) Somers never fell for that nonsense and has always encouraged sensible supplements in addition to a "good" diet. She always recognized the need for folate and iron supplements and was the first nutritionist to recognize the need for fluoride supplements in pregnancy. She anticipated, by four years, the present recommendation (Aug,'97 prelim; March'99 final) of the Food and Nutrition Board that pregnant women get 3 mg of fluoride a day. As the average diet in the US contains 0.5-2.5 mg, supplementation is necessary to meet this new Dietary Reference for Adequate Intake. Elizabeth Somer deserves great credit for her foresight and for the best pregnancy nutrition book on the market.
Rating:
Summary: Just what I was looking for!
Review: I am still in the "planning" phase and have been searching high and low for a book to prep me for pregnancy. This book has been wonderful. I agree with the other reviewer who said that this was certainly a wake-up call. I don't know why but it never dawned on me how many nutrients the baby needs to grow and develop. I found the guidelines easy to follow and the menus and recipes included in the back of the book to be great.
Rating:
Summary: good book for vegetarians, too
Review: I bought this book after returning a vegetarian pregnancy book, and I'm really pleased with it. I find the nutrition information detailed, easy to read and understand, and well-organized. The author is positive about vegetarian diets (many pregnancy authors are way too conservative about this, in my opinion). She makes easy to follow dietary recommendations for each stage of pregnancy--it's very easy to fit "your own" diet into it, including a vegetarian diet. I really appreciate the tables listing calcium-rich foods, iron-rich foods, etc.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent resource!
Review: I bought this book when I was preparing for my pregnancy. It had excellent tips on healthy eating, not only from a pregnancy perspective, but from nutrition in general. It covers the preconception stage, gearing up for pregnancy, then pregnancy itself, and lastly has a section on what to eat postpartum. One thing I loved about the book is that it explains how eating right will bring you back to your pre-pregnancy shape much faster. I gained 35 pounds with my pregnancy and lost it all within the first 3 months, and I've continued to lose. This book is an excellent resource for nutrition in general, even beyond the pregnancy part.
Rating: 
Summary: Not the best source out there
Review: I found the advice in the book to be preachy and a little too old school nutrition (basic food groups, lean meat, dairy etc.)In a time when there is so much new evidence about alternate protein and calcium choices..Would only recommend this book to someone who is eating very poorly and needs to begin with basic information.
Rating:
Summary: Useful advice? It's in there...somewhere...
Review: It does have good nutritional information. But, it made me feel guilty if I decided to have anything the least bit less that super healthy. I paraphrase, but it says somethign to the effect of "Think what you're doing to your baby before you put that into your mouth" ouch!
Rating: 
Summary: Felt like I was being Preached at!!
Review: It does have good nutritional information. But, it made me feel guilty if I decided to have anything the least bit less that super healthy. I paraphrase, but it says somethign to the effect of "Think what you're doing to your baby before you put that into your mouth" ouch!
Rating:
Summary: Useful advice? It's in there...somewhere...
Review: My wife and I came to this book for advice on our first pregnancy and had to work hard to get to the useful stuff. Let's start with the chapter on "Nutrition During the First Trimester" (which is where we were when we bought the book). There's a section called "Optimal Weight Gain" where the author talks a lot about gaining too much weight and not gaining enough, but little on what is just right. There's plenty of Cosmo-esque "advice" ("You are eating for two, but that second person is a baby not a linebacker", "If you want that prepregnancy little black dress to fit after pregnancy...") before you get to anything useful ("Aim for a 25 to 35 pound gain, but don't worry if you're short or over this mark as long as you are monitored by a physician."). The author advises pregnant women to not obsess over their weight. This advice would have been helpful for the author, who open each pregnancy chapter with a long section on weight gain. These sections contain a lot of harping on "don't gain too much!" and "don't gain too little!" without the corresponding "just right" information. Ironically, the author clucks her tongue at pre-liberation women who would obsess about gaining too much weight. I wonder if the author realizes how much she perpetuates such obsessions with her "little black dress" references. As you read the book, you get the impression that she's a little obsessed herself and you find yourself wanting to comfort the author that you fully understand the perils of too-much-or-not-enough weight gain, and could we please change the subject? Also annoying is Somer's tendancy to talk down to her readers. Lots of advice is doled out with a "Do this" or "Don't do that" attitude, sometimes falling annoyingly short on the reasons why. That's not to say the book isn't useful. Once you get beyond the unnecessarily stylized content, you'll get a good education on supplements, what foods to avoid, and foods that are especially helpful during pregnancy (or "SUPER FOODS!!!"). But the overall tone of the book is more fashion magazine than professional (especially compared to the far superior "What to Expect When Expecting" books). It is pretty telling that the "about the author" credits list "The Today Show", "Good Morning America" and "Shape" magazine first. It reads like something stylistically packaged that occasionally contains useful information.
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