family health

I bought this book after a friend told me about it, while I was newly pregnant. I really liked the week-to-week pictures of what the baby should look like and the descriptions of what was happening to my body and what to expect at the doctor's office. However, I must agree with some past reviews. This book scared me half to death, which made me seem a little crazy every time I went to the doctor with a ton of questions in my hand. It seems like the author wants to outweigh all of the good with what bad things can happen too, but to me, there were a lot of bad things that could happen every week of my pregnancy, without me knowing about them at all.

Also, I had to look things up in the back and then hunt them down in the book to read about them, since each "problem" is assigned a specific week.

The concept is a good one: look at how the baby is developing each week, by looking at a drawing and also how you should be feeling. I still recommend this book to pregnant friends and tell them how much it helped me. However, I think it would have been better if there had just been one chapter about things that could go wrong, instead of having a few things every week to worry about!

I didn't actually read the whole book, because I didn't feel anything in the book pertained to me and a NORMAL healthy pregnancy. I am currently just trying to get pregnant and wanted to follow the baby's development and my own on a daily or weekly basis. I didn't think they spent enought time on what is happening, and how you're feeling. I could not relate to substance abuse and addictions, etc. I stopped drinking and smoking when I decided to start a family and I only wanted to hear about the things I felt I needed to know. They could have talked a lot more about positive things, and positive things to do (or not do) to have a healthy baby. They didn't get into enough detail at all of any tops I did want to know about. What to Expect When You're Expecting and especially The Girlfriends' Guide to Pregnancy are EXCELLENT books! Buy them instead.

When I was pregnant my insurance company actually sent me this book--I never would have spent anything for it. The male author of this book adopts a condescending tone that, as an intelligent woman looking for information, I resented. He medicalizes birth, and ignores the need for empowerment of women in an arena that belongs to us. Not a single mention of current trends in childbirth such as birth centers, water birth, midwives, doulas (or, heaven forbid a HOME BIRTH!!)...If you are looking to be empowered with knowledge for a rewarding pregnancy and childbirth experience, I recommend anything by Penny Simkin or Sheila Kitzinger. (the authors my midwive recommended to me)