What to Expect When You're Expecting, Third Edition [Paperback]

The second chapter is titled "Now that you are Pregnant" and most of that chapter deals with "what you may be concerned about" which could also be titled "everything that could possibly go horribly wrong with your pregnancy" and it scared me half to death. I think it increased the amount of worrying I was doing exponentially [which couldn't have been a good thing!].

I also thought the diet portion was pretty ridiculous. I agree that we need to eat very healthily, especially during pregnancy. I eat very well and I ate especially well when pregnant. However, no human being I've ever met could [or would] stick to this diet plan. It was so strict as to be useless, in my opinion. I think people do much better with a "eat well 90% of the time and let yourself fudge a little the other 10%" kind of plan. But the diet stuff DID succeed in making me feel really, really guilty for the duration of my pregnancy if I ate anything that was not whole grain, organic, and laced with a heaping spoonful of Wheat Germ.

I also didn't think this was a very good guide to the "labor and delivery" part of the pregnancy, which was a big concern for me. This book was very "medical" in its outlook on labor and delivery and didn't go into very much detail about the process, really. I found "A Good Birth, A Safe Birth" to be much more useful, as well as "The Birth Book" by Sears.

All in all, this would be a good book to have on hand as a reference, just in case there were problems with the pregnancy, but I wouldn't buy it as your primary guide to pregnancy. For my second pregnancy, a friend recommended "The Pregnancy Book" by Sears and I found that MUCH more helpful honestly.

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This book is a complete, professional, non-judgemental reference. A lot of books try too hard to be funny or cute. WTE is not humorless, but it deals with subject matter in a refreshingly straightforward way. The advice and help given echoes what our doctors have said and answered most of our questions before we even saw our Obstetritian (no, it's not a substitute).

This book covered EVERYTHING. It answered all our questions about diet, medication, flu shots, cat ownership, false labor, vitamin supplements, cramps, ultrasound, breastfeeding or how to judge your OB/GYN. All the answers were in here, along with tons of other stuff we didn't think about until we came across it here.

Most importantly, this book isn't judgemental. There are a ton of controversial issues associated with pregnancy (medication, breast feeding, circumcision). Lots of books out make a lot of assumptions about religion, single parents, "modern times" or they just avoid some issues entirely. This book assumes you can make up your own mind once you're presented with all the information. This book wasn't a replacement for our doctors, but it gave us a lot of really useful information without taking a side.

If the book has a flaw, it is the diet section. Do yourself a favor and skip that section. In all fairness, this is a flaw of a lot of the books we read (some of them reading like 1950s "Keep Young And Beautiful" rants). Our doctor gave us a 10 page handout that gave us all the information we needed.

Like I say, we read a lot of pregnancy books. It's pretty shocking how many we found to be completly WORTHLESS! I don't want to name names, and I've already written a couple of negative reviews, but I'm thinking particularly of the ones full of Erma Bombeck-esque anecdotes about La Maz classes, the "staying chic while you're pregnant" fashion mag type, the old-fashioned preachy church-lady books, or--worst of all--the "nutrition" books that focused almost entirely on weight. Some of these books are written by people with no medical qualifications at all!

A good rule of thumb: if the author has no medical qualifications, the book will be useless from a medical standpoint. Would you allow a fashion magazine editor to make up your mind about having an epidural?

Just about every pregnancy book uses the "What Nobody Will Tell You" tagline. Once you've read this book, there will be very few surprises left. There isn't a topic that isn't touched on and just about everything you need is covered in depth. That's not to say this is the only book you need, but it goes a long, long way.

I'm only harping on this because I was pretty shocked to read some of the negative reviews that complained about WTE containing a lot of information on rare pregnancy situations, saying that such information was "scary" and "unnecessary". WTE gives plenty of information on what is serious as opposed to what is a false alarm. Nobody PLANS on having a troubled pregnancy! Aren't you better off knowing what's involved and how to detect and prevent such things? I suppose for some people ignorance is bliss, but we were MUCH happier being prepared. When we went into labor 5 weeks early, we felt at least somewhat prepared for it because it was extensively covered in the book!

If you're looking for entertainment, pick up something else or rent a movie. But if you're looking for a complete, professional, and useful reference book, What To Expect While You're Expecting is THE BEST and it will be the standard for years to come.

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