Rating: 
Summary: my favorite pregnancy book (& I've read them all)
Review: This is the one book I turned to again & again during my pregnancy, particularly during the latter half of the pregnancy. There is a chapter for each week of pregnancy, and over the course of forty weeks, the book covers all the topics. I especially enjoyed the sketches of a pregnant woman's body at different stages of the pregnancy, showing the size & position of the uterus and the fetus, and the commentaries about the size of the baby at different times pregnancy (most of which relate to food -- your baby is now the size of a pea, a grapefruit, a banana, a loaf of zucchini bread, etc.) The book also features plenty of photographs of pregnant women of all shapes & sizes, and you get a sense that Dr. Shananan really admires their beauty and their "pregnancy glow." I thought that the book celebrated pregnancy -- one of the other reviewers found that the book was too scary, talking about all of the risks of pregnancy, but I found it to be much less so than many of the other books on the market. Dr. Shanahan discusses risks realistically (she had three miscarriages before her daughter was born), but she doesn't dwell on them. Dr. Shanahan is very candid in her discussions of her own pregnancy -- like a friend telling you about her own choices, what she would have done differently, and discussing those areas in which she didn't really follow her own advice. For example, she discusses her teenage bout with eating disorders that led her to gain less weight than she should have during pregnancy, and the small (but perfectly healthy) baby that resulted. There is a picture of her in the delivery room with her baby five minutes after birth, looking like she doesn't have a clue about what to do next. She shares her journal entries to the baby, written while pregnant, about how she's not going to feed her baby fast food or stick her in front of the TV. Obviously, she knows her stuff -- but she's also a real person and her willingness to show that makes the book all the more enjoyable.
Rating: 
Summary: 20-20 Hindsight
Review: While I have not finished reading Dr. Shanahan's book in its entirety, I was most impressed with her ability to express herself with sincerety and humor. The items from her journal made the book so much more personal. I have loaned my copy to some of my co-workers and they too felt the same way about her "personalization." One of them read the dedication page and the tears rolled down her face. I hope to obtain further copies for friends I think would benefit from this book. Thank you, Dr. Shanahan.
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