Pregnancy: The Ultimate Week-by-Week Pregnancy Guide [Paperback]

Laura Riley MD OB/GYN (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 28, 2006

• The most up-to-date, comprehensive pregnancy guide on the market, delivering an unforgettable visual journey of developing life
• Week-by-week pregnancy format is easy-to-follow, enjoyable to read, and follows the standard development schedule used by the OB/GYN profession
• Detailed descriptions and eight pages of amazing full-color in-utero photographs guide expectant parents through a visual journey of the monthly changes of their growing baby
• The only pregnancy book on the market authored by a leading OB/GYN who is a doctor, an academic, and a mother
• Straightforward, comforting professional advice on the topics that are most important to expectant parents: having a healthy pregnancy, real-life labor, preparing for life as a family (both emotionally and financially), and juggling a career and motherhood
• Exclusive interactive due-date wheel makes it easy to determine conception date, week of pregnancy, and delivery date
• Special sections on labor and delivery, feeding options, and the first 12 weeks after baby’s birth
• Important checklists, including one for each prenatal check-up help the expectant mother prepare for and make the most out of each session with her doctor

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Laura E. Riley is a leading OB/GYN, M.D. and mother of two, giving her the ability to professionally understand and intimately relate to all elements of the pregnancy experience. Dr. Riley is a graduate of Harvard University and received her medical degree from the University of Pittsburgh. She is the Medical Director of Labor and Delivery at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. She has committed herself to educating and serving pregnant women for the past 15 years.
In addition to seeing patients, Dr. Riley teaches at Harvard Medical School as an Assistant Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Medicine. She has been quoted extensively in national publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek and the New York Times. Dr. Riley has appeared on NBC’s Today and CBS’s The Early Show and has published articles in many peered-reviewed scientific journals and websites. She has also edited a number of books on pregnancy. She lives in Boston with her husband, Scott, and their two daughters, Natalie and Lauren.

Product Details

• Paperback: 456 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (February 28, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0696222213
• ISBN-13: 978-0696222214
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #64,588 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best pregnancy book so far..., April 3, 2006

By 

macnh1 (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pregnancy: The Ultimate Week-by-Week Pregnancy Guide (Paperback)

When we had our first child my wife got all of the other pregnancy books that tracked the process week by week. We found many of them helpful but we still went to each doctor's visit with a long list of questions. We grabbed this book as a reference guide towards the end of my wife's second pregnancy and found it to be the most informative, direct, and comprehensive pregnancy book on the market. Every basic day to day question that we ever brought to our doctor was answered simply and directly in this book.

If we were having a baby for the first time again, we would without hesitation make this our number one source of information outside of our obstetrician.

The post partum section is great too. It really gives insight in to what it's like to have a newborn in the house and how to deal with the challenges of the first few weeks.

Great book!!!!

73 of 89 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Better Than Most, BUT...., June 30, 2006

By 

Kelly "kelly" (United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Pregnancy: The Ultimate Week-by-Week Pregnancy Guide (Paperback)

I am a childbirth educator and mom to four children - now happily pregnant with number five. I was really weary of the traditional pregnancy fare ["what to expect" "your pregnancy week by week" etc] - I found them full of scariness for first time moms, often inaccurate or poorly written, and, in one case, kind of creepy with repeated mention of aborting the baby for different reasons.

So, I was SO pleased this time around to find this book! The book follows the "week by week" format that I really enjoy - tracking both the baby's development and the mom's changes and questions that may arise.

I found the author [an OB with a very respectable set of credentials]enjoyable to read. She has a conversational style that is very informative while at the same time being very reassuring. She seemed like someone I would like if I met her in real life - someone easy to talk to who knows a lot and actually cares about people. Her "voice" gave the book a very nice "feel". She is also obviously very knowlegable and did a great job including an amazing amount of information in this book.

In the first part of the book there are really neat full color photographs of babies at different stages of development... really incredible.

HOWEVER, as I delved deeper into the book [I've been reading it along as my pregnancy progresses], I've been more disturbed. The first trimester section is upbeat and excellent. As we move into the second trimester though, the author starts talking more about all the testing that can be done and all the scary things that can go wrong. I question whether moms in the general population [99% of whom won't have to deal with these problems] really NEED to read about every scary, awful thing that might possibly happen? If something does go wrong, I'm sure the mother's OB or Midwife will give her tons of information, so why should every pregnant woman have to worry about every detail of every awful thing that might possibly [but most probably will not] go wrong?

In addition, in the second trimester abortion is mentioned over and over. It culminates in Week 17 [page 145] with a DETAILED description of *how* a 17 week baby would be aborted and what techniques the doctor would use to kill the baby and remove it! I was really astounded and emotionally pained. I am at 17 weeks and I just can't imagine - surely very few women consider aborting at this late stage? Why on earth would the author choose to subject all her readers to this kind of description?

The last thing I want to read about is babies dying - I was so excited to make it past that 12 week mark when the risk of miscarriage goes down, and now I have to read details of second trimester abortion? It just seemed bizarre to me and very discomforting. So, expectant moms be warned - you may want at the very least to skip that section!

Also, this book is targeted exclusively to working mothers. There is much to be found on day care, maternity leave, etc but *NOTHING* for moms who are choosing to make the sacrifice to stay home with thier babies and forfeit their income at least while the babies are little. I didn't think that was very fair or balanced, because many women DO make the choice to stay home and they definitely need support for that because it can be hard going - especially trying to survive financially. Those moms deserve just as much support and help as the moms who put their kids in daycare and return to work. [I myself am a working mother, so this is NOT a judgment against working moms, just an opinion that stay at home moms deserve support too].

So, my advice? This book will get through your pregnancy and will teach you all about your growing baby, and it is probably better than the other books out there, but its not the perfect answer by any means. [I'm still looking for that perfect pregnancy book! :) ]

Regardless, you will need to get yourself a couple of good books on birthing [check out "Birthing from Within" and "The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth"] because birth is covered inadequately in a small section of this book.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very informative!, November 3, 2006

By 

S. DeElena "kokolove" (Colorado, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Pregnancy: The Ultimate Week-by-Week Pregnancy Guide (Paperback)

I bought this for my sister who is pregnant for the first time and she LOVES it. I also checked out several other popular pregnancy books from the library for her and she kept going back to this one and did not want any of the others. Dr. Riley goes into great detail from week to week about the development of the baby, what the mother could be experiencing and what can be expected and yes she does cover the negative aspects. No one wants to read or hear about what bad situations could occur but it is better to be informed of what could go wrong than be surprised if something does happen. It is a great book and I highly recommend it!