Customer Reviews

The Complete Illustrated Pregnancy Companion: A Week-by-Week Guide to Everything You Need To Do for a Healthy Pregnancy

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1 star:		(1)

 

 

I'm nearing the end of my second pregnancy and since it's been nearly a decade since my first a lot has changed. Because of that I wanted a new book to look to that might contain some useful information I didn't have my first time.

THE COMPLETE ILLUSTRATED PREGNANCY COMPANION is a very good resource. I very much like that it is divided into the week format. Yet, by far, what pleased me most about this one is that unlike the majority of pregnancy related material out there this one is very second (and beyond) pregnancy friendly. There's nothing I've found more frustrating with this second time than everything catering to first-timers. That said this would be an excellent one to pick up whether this is your first or not.

So what does this book focus on each week?

Each week has its own section which is broken down into parts. A checklist for the week begins each chapter. The checklist is essentially an overview of what you will learn about and want to likely focus on. For example, I am on week 30 and my checklist includes ordering a home birth kit (if I were choosing to have a home birth) and purchasing a breast pump (if I am choosing to breastfeed). As I have gone through the book I have found that some of the checklist items aren't relevent to me but those that are tend to be well timed and useful reminders.

From there the chapter moves on to what to watch for each week. These generally include physical changes in your body such as nausea, back aches, swelling, fetal movement and bleeding. Some weeks these will be the same as the previous and I found that most were a bit more timed toward a first timer but weren't that far off for me with this second pregnancy.

Next the chapter moves on to body basics which is usually a rundown of what changes your body is likely going through and often includes some simple ways to relieve discomfort. A good example of this is my current week's discussion of stretch marks and having an itchy belly as the skin stretches due to shifts in position the baby is going through. For this a good moisturizer is recommended to sooth the itching and keep the skin moist as it stetches.

But the chapters aren't just about your body! Baby data features a photo of a fetus at this week and provides information about the latest changes in the baby's growth and development. If you enjoy knowing when your baby should have eyelashes or info about lung development these sections in each week can be really helpful and comforting.

From here the chapter is broken down into Pregnancy Particulars and small sections about the checklist items follow. These often include lists and information about things you'll want to do. My week right now has a breakdown of what I would need for a home birth kit including a rough cost estimate. It also includes information I found very helpful for purchasing a breast pump comparing manual and electric ones and discussing cost. Other weeks might focus on questions you should considering asking your practitioner, how to get dad involved, preparing pets and older siblings for a new baby, when to tell your family or boss and many other practical items about body changes and soothing discomforts.

Other items the weekly chapters include are a Pregnancy Affirmation and a Hot Mama section. The affirmations can be seem a bit repetative but are definitely well meaning. Many seem to be focused on reminding the mommy that her body is beautiful, strong and doing exactly what it should be. These positive messages certainly do not hurt, especially when body size and shape begins to cause self esteem issues. The Hot Mama section is also pretty useful in discussing ways to keep your self esteem over your changing body and wardrobe in check. Suggestions for what types of maternity wear to buy and ideas for other ways to feel pretty might seem less important than all the medical stuff but please trust me when I say this stuff is just as important! Being comfortable, looking put together and attractive are no less important during pregnancy because when you feel good about yourself you will feel good about the other changes you're going through. And that is pretty much the message the Hot Mama section seems to share. In addition to these two sections you may find little mini articles that often relate to the previously mentioned Pregnancy Particulars or may be just generally informative.

Beyond the chapters focusing on the weeks you will find the Labor and Birth section and a Postpartum section. These are pretty beefy chapters with a lot of info to digest and they seem to cover almost every base I could think of. I plan to read and reread these sections frequently and I think any mom-to-be who is nervous about things such as the use of pain medications, c-sections, or being induced could benefit from these sections of the Labor and Birth chapter. The Postpartum section is equally useful with topics about everything from dealing with staples or stitches from a c-section and what will still be happening to your body to post partum depression and birth control options.

What about this book didn't work for or bugged me?

For one, this book isn't quite illustrated exactly. There are lots and lots of beautiful pictures of pregnant women, fetuses and such but if you're looking for a book that shows you in diagrams where your baby is, how your organs may look at different stages of your pregnancy or if you are having multiples how they may be positioned and just general stuff like this... this book just doesn't have it. You may want to ask your OB or physician for recommendations of the best books for this kind of information, especially for your male partner as they may be clue-less as to how all that works and in my experience many really do want to know.

The other issue I had with the book is a smaller one. Occasionally a section of a chapter will discuss things such as people giving unsolicited advice, telling horror stories about labor or how to deal with comments about your body size and shape at different stages. These are really good topics because they are real situations that come up! What bothered me with this book was the attitude they tend to suggest you present these people with. In my experience most people who are offering advice or commenting on how you look really mean well or are simply curious. Some of the more snotty and snippy ways to counter-act these situations that the book presents seem unneccessarily rude or nasty. Just because we're pregnant doesn't mean we're given free reign to treat others badly even if we could easily blame it on hormones and get away with it. But every reader may feel differently about this subject and some may love the snarky comment suggestions. Afterall... someone telling me I look like I swallowed a beach ball would certainly hurt my feelings even if they were only teasing!

As a resource for pregnancy, labor and your body post-partum this is a really good guide that I would certainly recommend to any pregnant woman looking for something informative, positive and organized. I would suggest adding a book about the baby after birth though as this book doesn't cover much beyond the birth and hospital stay. And if you don't mind my unsolicited advice from one mommy to others I would suggest getting at least three different pregnancy/childbirth books to round out your information. With my first pregnancy and birth experience I was very glad I had read a variety of books about it all because they helped me feel prepared when things got scary and stressful. Best wishes for a happy, healthy pregnancy and your baby (or babies as the case may be)!

I was gifted this book and found that it has just the right amount of information presented in a clear, friendly and visually appealing way. A pleasure to pick up compared to some more clinical texts that feel like homework. I love that there is a quick summary of what to look out for each week that does not give you the constant feeling that the sky is going to fall. There are also lots of lovely little reassuring bits tucked in to constantly remind you to enjoy the experience and take care of yourself. Highly recommended!

This author does a fantastic job of giving you the information that you need about the week-to-week physical, mental and emotional changes that you will probably be experiencing in a way that feels like it's coming from a sister or a girlfriend. What she doesn't do it try to scare the beans out of you with horror stories about "what COULD go wrong..."--I get enough of that from strangers who then try to touch my tummy. Robin does covers that information but in a clinical manner with a great deal of tact. There are great ultrasound pictures for every week as well as super tips on keeping fit and keeping sane and tons of websites and organizations listed in the index for further research!

Now, if only Robin could get the fashion industry to understand that hormonal women who are already carrying around 25 extra pounds DO NOT want to wear butt-ugly maternity tops with huge flowers on them....

This book is very visually appealing, but not very informative. Basically, it is the info you can get from any pregnancy website put into book form. Even the pictures, which are nice at first glance, basically contribute nothing to your knowledge about pregnancy. They are basically stylish-looking pictures of smiling pregnant women and sometimes, their partners.

I have been looking at a lot of pregnancy books lately, and I was pretty astonished at how unhelpful this book is compared to others, such as the Mayo Clinic book, Your Pregnancy Week by Week, or Dr. Sears's Pregnancy Book, and even the Our Bodies Ourselves Pregnancy & Birth book (which has great info on birth but is also kind of light on the pregnancy information). The information that is there is scattered haphazardly throughout the book. For instance, it would be really helpful to put the information for amniocentesis and CVS side-by-side, because couples usually only do one, not both, to screen for genetic issues. Instead, CVS and amnio are both mentioned at different times throughout the book, only put together in this one sidebar about genetic screening that really doesn't give you any kind of helpful information.

The other issue I have with this book is one that others may actually think is a plus. I am not looking for a fear-mongering book, but sometimes things happen during pregnancy, and you aren't sure whether it's a problem or whether it isn't. I want that information in a pregnancy book, and you get it in great detail in some of the other ones that I mentioned above. This book basically glosses over any possible problems that might happen, as if you are in a magic pregnancy bubble, blissfully unaware that anything might happen, even normal things that might not be cause for alarm, like spotting. It also has suggested affirmations to repeat to yourself each week such as "I am enjoying my pregnancy to the fullest" (week 21) and "My baby and I are growing" (week 16). I appreciate the fact that the book isn't trying to boss me around or make me feel guilty if I have an ice cream cone, but other books (like Our Bodies Ourselves) also tend to have a very positive, woman-friendly tone that isn't so fluffy.

There are some helpful checklists and questions in the appendices, but nothing you can't get elsewhere.

Bottom line: I really can't think of any compelling reason to get this book. You can get the information it does have elsewhere, and you might miss what isn't there.

My wife and I have a baby and a toddler at home so we've been through a few pregnancy books over the past few years. Most of this review comes from my wife but as a husband I would recommend this as one of the more accessible pregnancy books I've seen. My wife rates this book very well: it covers pretty much everything you need to know in a reasonable amount of detail. You may still want another book such as What to Expect When You're Expecting for when you want to research something in deeper detail but this one is much better organized than "What To Expect". As the title suggest it is well illustrated with excellent photography and images of the developing baby.

Aside from the usual medical doctor the other author is a doula and child birth educator and it really reflects in the tone of the book which more like a calm, reassuring birth coach than a doctor popping in to dump the facts on you. Still there is always a little sidebar, courtesy the perinatologist/author on things to watch for with a brief description. We had one scary child birth and this book had well placed exactly what we would have needed to watch for exactly when we would have needed to know it. There's also a small post-partum section that while brief has a good primer on what you need to know. My wife recommends Breastfeeding Made Simple as a must have for this time period along with a good "First Year" book such as those by Dr. Spock or Dr. Sears. We also both found The Holistic Pediatrician to be an excellent reference.

Overall an excellent book: well organized, well written, and just enough detail to make it informative but not too much to make it unreadable.

I had three pregnancy books. The Pregnancy Companion, Your Pregnancy & Birth, and Mayo Clinic Guide to Pregnancy. The Pregnancy Compantion had a better layout than the other two and was easier to read snippits of information and mini articles. Overall, it was more soothing and reassuring in nature than some of the other books, which can be far more medically oriented. It is also full of pictures and colored pages, which makes me think it would be a nice gift, over some of the others which function more as reference guides.

The book is set up on a week-by week basis. While this is a good concept, I think its hard to pinpoint certain milestones on a week by week basis. Its perfect when you are doing your weekly reading but makes it harder to research a particular topic in depth. Also, each week was started with some helpful tips, but I found them to be really generic and dont have much to do with benchmarks, like "buy a body pillow".

Overall, it is light, yet informative reading and great for a first time mother. When I was pregnant what I enjoyed reading most were these week-by-week articles, so for that kind of reading, this book is perfect.

By the time we got this book through the Amazon Vine program last May, we were already at the end of the first trimester of our first baby. Unfortunately, that also means our expectation on the content of this book was already set very high. Why? Because we have already bought/been gifted at least ten books on the subject and read at least five of them in detail. And indeed, the often mentioned "What to Expect When You're Expecting" was gifted to us, as well as our eventual favorite "Mayo Clinic Guide to a Healthy Pregnancy", which we actually pick up at the bookstore buy ourselves.

It is easy to pick on this book's somewhat unfortunate title. We really don't know in which sense this book is "complete" when compared to the two books mentioned above. At best I would say this one is an illustrated guide and you definitely don't want this to be your only book on the subject unless you are already on your second or future pregnancy when you know what's normal and merely need a book to remind you what to do each week. (So it's accurate to say this book is a "companion".) This book, however, does have its very own strength: it's tone is very positive and reassuring, the organization is generally very clear, and the graphics are all nicely done (although a bit too commercial/glamorous for our taste). This cannot be said about the tone in What-to-Expect book, which at times reads more like a disaster preparation textbook, except it is written in a conversational tone. The Mayo guide is a lot more balanced in this regard and its professional tone has won our approval. In the end, we do recommend getting this book or a similar weekly guide and keep it in a visible place so you will be reminded to flip it from time to time. The Mayo guide is long and you may not like the paperback quality.

The Complete Illustrated Pregnancy Companion / 978-1-592-33358-5

I've been digging through a lot of pregnancy books lately, in preparation for a hoped-for conception in the relatively near future, so I was excited to receive The Complete Illustrated Pregnancy Companion. I was also a little overwhelmed, however - weighing in at 320 pages, this is not a book to skim through quickly and it took me a long time to finish reading it.

This book isn't really meant for sit-down reading, though. It's a week-by-week guide of your pregnancy, with each weekly chapter opening with a full page color photo of another pregnant woman at this weekly stage so that you can see what your body might likely resemble at this point. (I was pleased to note that the women are all pleasantly 'normal' looking - perhaps pregnancy books are the last vestige against needing to airbrush everyone into anorexic states.) The weekly chapter includes all kinds of data, accompanied by bright and gorgeous photographs, detailing what the baby looks like so far, what development hurdles it has passed, what symptoms you are likely to be feeling, what exercises and preparations are a good idea at this point (one of the weeks immediately prior to delivery advises loading up the MP3 player with tunes to listen to in the hospital, and trying to generally relax and not stress too much), and much more.

Some people have compared this book to a "coffee table book", albeit an exquisitely beautiful, informative, and extensive coffee table book, and I can see where they're coming from with that opinion. This book isn't as perfectly comprehensive as some "complete" pregnancy books, tending to speak in generalities as opposed to "here is everything that anyone has ever experienced and it may happen to you" subject matter material that definitely has its place in pregnancy literature. And the week-by-week layout obviously conflicts with a subject-matter oriented layout that allows you to find out everything about, say, morning sickness from the first week to the last. I think that's probably why the book was finally labeled a "companion" - this won't be your one-stop source for all things pregnancy related, but as a daily resource (not unlike a journal), it's invaluable. And since most women rarely stop at just one book for pregnancy, it's okay that this book does one thing well instead of all things broadly. Topping out at over 300 pages, as mentioned previously, this is not a light-weight introduction to pregnancy and it's definitely a book that I will consult frequently and repeatedly when the time comes, which is more than I can probably say for some of the more "comprehensive subject matter" books which tend to be of less use for daily application.

~ Ana Mardoll

This is very informative guide to pregnancy. There is a checklist for every week, to do list, description what is going on in your body and how the baby is growing. The book is mainly focused on the woman herself, so it lacks details on the baby. I wish they included bigger and nicer pictures of the future babies. There is a lot of very useful advice for moms-to-be. I like the section at the and about labor and delivery. And there are no too naturalistic pictures of a baby sticking out of you, so the book is decent enough to read in other people's presence.

Robin Elise Weiss' latest effort is a beauty---a true beauty. Just thumbing through it is a delight for the eyes and draws the reader into wanting to know more. The information is solid and evidence-based without being preachy or overwhelming. Her style is honest and real and gives the reader every reason to keep on reading.

I found the book to be a draw for parents-to-be in my childbirth classes who are nervous about reading one of "those" books. They could not help but want to know more as they followed the book's path. The fact that it is a pleasure to look at as well is a major bonus.

Reading "TCIPC" is like sitting down with the author on a lazy day, knitting and drinking a bit of tea. You are hanging out with a good friend who just happens to be an expert on labor and birth and you finally have the chance to ask the questions that have been on your mind. And the best part is that the author has a great sense of humor and a desire to help you feel more confident as you get closer to birthing your own baby.