Reviews: pregnancy and childbirth guides, and related books
Disclaimer: These are only my personal opinons. I read some of these books more thoroughly than others, and some more recently than others. I am not an expert, or a doctor, or a midwife, and I haven't even gone through labor yet. I'm planning on a fairly standard hospital birth, with pain medication, and I lean toward the medical and away from the mystical when it comes to thinking about pregnancy and motherhood. I'm a feminist, a liberal, and a control freak with a penchant for pragmatism, and that subjectivity necessarily colors these reviews.
Reviews of pregnancy and childbirth books:
Pregnancy:
Your Pregnancy Week By Week, by Curtis and Schuler. Not recommended. Not recommended despite the fact that I consulted this book a little more often than others, just because it was nice to know what was different week to week. Sites like pregnancyweekly.com or StorkNet's Pregnancy Week by Week will give you similarly thorough weekly information, and the book chapters were mainly padded out with other pregnancy advice. This was a very poor organizational choice, as the section on multiples was hidden in the third trimester and I kept finding pieces on nutrition scattered throughout - it wasn't a book you could or should read in a linear fashion, and yet it was ostensibly organized along a timeline. Use the web sites for the weekly stuff and buy another book (I've recommended two good ones below) for the general pregnancy information.
The Expectant Father, by Armin Brott. Neither recommended nor not recommended. I skimmed this, and was not horribly impressed. Himself read it and didn't find it overwhelmingly informative. My feminist sensibilities were fairly offended by the amount of space it devoted to financial planning and paperwork, and the assumption that such things were the Role Of The Man. Full of dorky speculation on how your wife might feel and common-sense text-box pullouts on nice things to do for her, along the lines of newspaper columns that suggest red roses and chocolate for Valentine's Day. More clearly hetero-marriage-normed than almost anything else I read. Still, it's nice to have a resource for pregnancy that isn't about all the biology and birth process stuff of it and focuses more on the support and life planning aspects.
Pregnancy and Childbirth:
The Complete Book of Pregnancy and Childbirth, by Sheila Kitzinger. Not recommended. This has nice graphics and neat anecdotal information (genetic eye color charts, full-color pictures of fetal size and positioning, etc.) That said, I found the tone of the book overemotional (a great deal of "your baby" this and that right off the bat, and a lot of speculation on how you might feel about/during any given part of the pregnancy). I was also highly unimpressed by the circumcision section, which mentions infant death as a possible consequence in the first paragraph, among a list of other highly negative factors. I'm not particularly a fan of circumcision myself, but I like to be presented with unbiased information and allowed to make my own choices in discussion with my partner, not fearmongered into one position or the other. Bias toward natural childbirth.
Pregnancy, Childbirth, and the Newborn, by Simkin, Whalley, and Keppler. Highly recommended. Tons of information, good timelines, nice clear graphics, good tables, checklists, and thorough coverage of everything from breathing patterns to positions, nutrition to possible complications, choosing a hospital to preparing a birth plan to breastfeeding. Well-indexed, with a nice "resources" guide in the back as well. For those who like encyclopaedic and comprehensive reference sources. There's some coverage of emotional states (which is good, you don't want a book that totally ignores them) and no detectable bias in terms of medication, etc.
Planning Your Pregnancy and Birth, by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Highly recommended. This was given to me by a friend who had found it unhelpful, so as with all reviews, this is just my opinion. I found the information in this clearly presented, relatively unbiased, conducive to neither panic nor complacency, and quite thorough. There are useful informational charts throughout, and the advice is soundly based in research rather than sentiment. Their checklists are invaluable (in terms of what to do to prepare for the hospital, etc.), practical, and easy to use. If I had to buy one book for the pregnancy side of things again, I'd choose this one - it's not necessarily better than the Simkin, Whalley, and Keppler book, but it's more concise and therefore I was able to assimilate more of the information wholesale, whereas I tended to use the other book as a "dip in" reference rather than an overall guide.
Labor and Delivery:
Ina May's Guide to Childbirth, by Ina May Gaskin. NOT recommended. I should have known better than to pick up a book on natural childbirth in my 35th week, particularly this one. Not only was the cant of the book far from my own sort of pragmatic, medically-oriented perspective, I found her statistics and rhetoric on everything from epidurals to C-sections scare-mongering. If I want to read about c-sections, I certainly don't want to read a whole subsequent section on the underrepresentation of maternal death, for chrissake. Worriers, panickers, and control freaks should avoid this one at all costs. I felt better and more confident about labor before skimming this. And as for her suggestion that women who are not comfortable playing with their clitorises while delivering "go see Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues," BITE ME, Ms. May. I am quite comfortable with my body, and it's rude and disingenuous to imply that prudishness or repression might be the only reasons someone might want to avoid a particular technique.
The Birth Partner, by Penny Simkin. Recommended. It's written for the person supporting the laboring mother, but I read it and found it very helpful myself. It covers possible complications, but not in a scary way (I felt much more okay about the idea of a C-section after reading it than before) and gives a good idea of sort of the physical and emotional stages involved in a typical birth, while acknowledging that each experience is unique. No visible medication/non-medication bias, though it does seem to assume a hospital birth for the most part. Includes a very nice scale to use in thinking about pain medication preferences. This is the book I asked Himself to read to prepare for becoming my labor support.
Other random:
A Child Is Born, by Lennart Nilsson. Neither recommended nor not recommended. Nice if you can get it used or from a friend. It's got a lot of great photographs of in utero development, which are totally fascinating. No detectable pro-life slant to the text, but several people have mentioned to me that they found that the pictures themselves made them think about their own pro-choice views. That said, I've never heard of this book changing anyone's mind - I think the right has just co-opted fetal images to such an extent that any examination of them now makes people think of their beliefs on when life begins. I am very secure in my own views on this, and had no problem with this book.
Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year, by Anne Lamott. Recommended. This book made me feel better about the whole idea of becoming a parent. Anne Lamott is excellent at showing how flawed and frightened people navigate difficult times, and this book was a wonderful antidote to all the Vaseline-lens depictions of motherhood you see elsewhere - it made me think, if Anne Lamott can do this, I can do this. It may be scary and messy and tiring and frightening, but look! Still good.
Flux: Women on Sex, Work, Love, Kids, and Life in a Half-Changed World, by Peggy Orenstein. Recommended. An interesting feminist look at women in with regard to careers, marriage, and children, analyzing the choices they make in the light of societal trends that disempower women and mothers. Like many books that focus on the social and gender implications of motherhood, this focuses on middle and upper class educated American women - those who have choices between staying home and working. Since I fall into that bracket, I found it an engaging and interesting lighter read, and to be fair, it's not intended to cover all women everywhere.
The Price of Motherhood: Why The Most Important Job in the World Is Still the Least Valued, by Anne Crittenden. Recommended. Again, this covers mainly upper and middle-class women; I think it's probably less interesting to authors (who tend to be middle/upper class themselves) to examine motherhood in the lower economic brackets, because there's more necessity than choice at play. That said, I would have liked to see MORE discussion in this one of the impact of these social trends at lower income levels. This was a devastating economic critique of the economic impact of mothering, including chapters on careers, taxes, and divorce and child support. Depressing as hell, well-researched, well-argued. I'm about 3/4 of the way through; will update this if I feel I need to say more after I finish.
Reviews of pregnancy and childbirth books:
Pregnancy:
Your Pregnancy Week By Week, by Curtis and Schuler. Not recommended. Not recommended despite the fact that I consulted this book a little more often than others, just because it was nice to know what was different week to week. Sites like pregnancyweekly.com or StorkNet's Pregnancy Week by Week will give you similarly thorough weekly information, and the book chapters were mainly padded out with other pregnancy advice. This was a very poor organizational choice, as the section on multiples was hidden in the third trimester and I kept finding pieces on nutrition scattered throughout - it wasn't a book you could or should read in a linear fashion, and yet it was ostensibly organized along a timeline. Use the web sites for the weekly stuff and buy another book (I've recommended two good ones below) for the general pregnancy information.
The Expectant Father, by Armin Brott. Neither recommended nor not recommended. I skimmed this, and was not horribly impressed. Himself read it and didn't find it overwhelmingly informative. My feminist sensibilities were fairly offended by the amount of space it devoted to financial planning and paperwork, and the assumption that such things were the Role Of The Man. Full of dorky speculation on how your wife might feel and common-sense text-box pullouts on nice things to do for her, along the lines of newspaper columns that suggest red roses and chocolate for Valentine's Day. More clearly hetero-marriage-normed than almost anything else I read. Still, it's nice to have a resource for pregnancy that isn't about all the biology and birth process stuff of it and focuses more on the support and life planning aspects.
Pregnancy and Childbirth:
The Complete Book of Pregnancy and Childbirth, by Sheila Kitzinger. Not recommended. This has nice graphics and neat anecdotal information (genetic eye color charts, full-color pictures of fetal size and positioning, etc.) That said, I found the tone of the book overemotional (a great deal of "your baby" this and that right off the bat, and a lot of speculation on how you might feel about/during any given part of the pregnancy). I was also highly unimpressed by the circumcision section, which mentions infant death as a possible consequence in the first paragraph, among a list of other highly negative factors. I'm not particularly a fan of circumcision myself, but I like to be presented with unbiased information and allowed to make my own choices in discussion with my partner, not fearmongered into one position or the other. Bias toward natural childbirth.
Pregnancy, Childbirth, and the Newborn, by Simkin, Whalley, and Keppler. Highly recommended. Tons of information, good timelines, nice clear graphics, good tables, checklists, and thorough coverage of everything from breathing patterns to positions, nutrition to possible complications, choosing a hospital to preparing a birth plan to breastfeeding. Well-indexed, with a nice "resources" guide in the back as well. For those who like encyclopaedic and comprehensive reference sources. There's some coverage of emotional states (which is good, you don't want a book that totally ignores them) and no detectable bias in terms of medication, etc.
Planning Your Pregnancy and Birth, by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Highly recommended. This was given to me by a friend who had found it unhelpful, so as with all reviews, this is just my opinion. I found the information in this clearly presented, relatively unbiased, conducive to neither panic nor complacency, and quite thorough. There are useful informational charts throughout, and the advice is soundly based in research rather than sentiment. Their checklists are invaluable (in terms of what to do to prepare for the hospital, etc.), practical, and easy to use. If I had to buy one book for the pregnancy side of things again, I'd choose this one - it's not necessarily better than the Simkin, Whalley, and Keppler book, but it's more concise and therefore I was able to assimilate more of the information wholesale, whereas I tended to use the other book as a "dip in" reference rather than an overall guide.
Labor and Delivery:
Ina May's Guide to Childbirth, by Ina May Gaskin. NOT recommended. I should have known better than to pick up a book on natural childbirth in my 35th week, particularly this one. Not only was the cant of the book far from my own sort of pragmatic, medically-oriented perspective, I found her statistics and rhetoric on everything from epidurals to C-sections scare-mongering. If I want to read about c-sections, I certainly don't want to read a whole subsequent section on the underrepresentation of maternal death, for chrissake. Worriers, panickers, and control freaks should avoid this one at all costs. I felt better and more confident about labor before skimming this. And as for her suggestion that women who are not comfortable playing with their clitorises while delivering "go see Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues," BITE ME, Ms. May. I am quite comfortable with my body, and it's rude and disingenuous to imply that prudishness or repression might be the only reasons someone might want to avoid a particular technique.
The Birth Partner, by Penny Simkin. Recommended. It's written for the person supporting the laboring mother, but I read it and found it very helpful myself. It covers possible complications, but not in a scary way (I felt much more okay about the idea of a C-section after reading it than before) and gives a good idea of sort of the physical and emotional stages involved in a typical birth, while acknowledging that each experience is unique. No visible medication/non-medication bias, though it does seem to assume a hospital birth for the most part. Includes a very nice scale to use in thinking about pain medication preferences. This is the book I asked Himself to read to prepare for becoming my labor support.
Other random:
A Child Is Born, by Lennart Nilsson. Neither recommended nor not recommended. Nice if you can get it used or from a friend. It's got a lot of great photographs of in utero development, which are totally fascinating. No detectable pro-life slant to the text, but several people have mentioned to me that they found that the pictures themselves made them think about their own pro-choice views. That said, I've never heard of this book changing anyone's mind - I think the right has just co-opted fetal images to such an extent that any examination of them now makes people think of their beliefs on when life begins. I am very secure in my own views on this, and had no problem with this book.
Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year, by Anne Lamott. Recommended. This book made me feel better about the whole idea of becoming a parent. Anne Lamott is excellent at showing how flawed and frightened people navigate difficult times, and this book was a wonderful antidote to all the Vaseline-lens depictions of motherhood you see elsewhere - it made me think, if Anne Lamott can do this, I can do this. It may be scary and messy and tiring and frightening, but look! Still good.
Flux: Women on Sex, Work, Love, Kids, and Life in a Half-Changed World, by Peggy Orenstein. Recommended. An interesting feminist look at women in with regard to careers, marriage, and children, analyzing the choices they make in the light of societal trends that disempower women and mothers. Like many books that focus on the social and gender implications of motherhood, this focuses on middle and upper class educated American women - those who have choices between staying home and working. Since I fall into that bracket, I found it an engaging and interesting lighter read, and to be fair, it's not intended to cover all women everywhere.
The Price of Motherhood: Why The Most Important Job in the World Is Still the Least Valued, by Anne Crittenden. Recommended. Again, this covers mainly upper and middle-class women; I think it's probably less interesting to authors (who tend to be middle/upper class themselves) to examine motherhood in the lower economic brackets, because there's more necessity than choice at play. That said, I would have liked to see MORE discussion in this one of the impact of these social trends at lower income levels. This was a devastating economic critique of the economic impact of mothering, including chapters on careers, taxes, and divorce and child support. Depressing as hell, well-researched, well-argued. I'm about 3/4 of the way through; will update this if I feel I need to say more after I finish.
posted by The Stute Fish at 14:08
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