634 of 639 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Superior to "What to Expect...", August 14, 2005
Back when babies were just daydreams, I recieved "What to Expect When You're Expecting" (3rd ed.) from a pregnant friend who had an extra copy. Not knowing any better, I was quite pleased. Once I became pregnant and actually needed a guide, however, that changed. I found the book to be poorly organized, overly conversational and condescending in tone (especially given my plans to be a stay-at-home mom), and generally useless for anything other than instilling fear and paranoia. Most exasperating, though, was the "organization." Symptoms that can arise during varying parts of pregnancy are scattered haphazardly amongst the monthly chapters. This means that the book must be read cover to cover and all material retained in memory if hunting through the index and flipping back and forth between sections doesn't sound appealing.
Enter the "Mayo Clinic Guide to a Healthy Pregnancy." Hallelujah! Not wanting to suffer through another mediocre guide to pregnancy, I looked through every book I could get my hands on, and this was the only one that satisfied my criteria. It is written by trustworthy professionals in clear yet -professional- language, it provides information on "pregnancy, childbirth and your newborn" in chronological order, and best of all, it contains separate sections entitled, appropriately, "decision guides for pregnancy, childbirth and parenthood," "pregnancy reference guide," and "complications of pregnancy and childbirth," each with a table of contents at the beginning of the section. Instead of having to take a wild guess at which chapter (or, more likely, chapters) cramping might have landed in in "What to Expect" or searching the entire index, I could find it, along with all the other things I might be wondering about, in the reference guide. Blessed simplicity!
The "Mayo Clinic Guide to a Healthy Pregnancy" was the only book I needed. Once I found it, "What to Expect When You're Expecting" went back on the shelf and stayed there.
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226 of 228 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best pregnancy book ever, May 6, 2005
When we started trying, I bought a lot of pregnancy books. I am now towards the end of my first trimester and this book has been by far the best book I own on this topic.
This book is extremely well organized, very informative and objective, and covers a wide range of topics from pregnancy to birth to breastfeeding.
It is very easy to find what you are looking for. For each week, it explains what your body is going through, how your baby is growing and what emotional changes you could expect. In each month, there is a summary page that lists the problems you may have in that period and tells you when you should call your doctor. There are very nice drawings that show what your baby looks like and how big it is. (Some pictures are real size, for others the book tells what percentage of the real thing the picture is.)
This book had answers to all my questions so far - and I should say, being a very curious first time mom, I had a lot of questions.
Thanks and congratulations to Mayo Clinic.
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273 of 283 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Saved my Baby, October 10, 2005
This is the best book out there by far. I had 3 other pregnancy books in addition to this one. This book answered every question I had during pregancy. And I had lots of them. At the week 38, I wasn't feeling great but I wasn't dying either. Just not feeling too well. I was having some minor chills, and NO fever. No other symptom. I opened the book and it said to call my OBGYN right away. I did so and my OBGYN wasn't too sure that it was urgent. My OBGYN then changed her mind 5 min later called me back and told me to go to the hospital for a quick checkup. My babies heartrate was over 200/min. They managed to stabilize him and 15 min his heartrate dropped to 80/min. Needless to say, my OBGYN did and emergency C-section. Had I not had this book and been so persistent with my doctor, my baby might be not be alive. Well worth every penny it costs.
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