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Title: The Mayo Clinic's Guide to a Healthy Pregnancy
Authors: Roger Harms and Myra Wick
Genre: Pregnancy guide
Thingummies: 5
Synopsis: Pretty much everything you could want to know about pregnancy and the first few weeks of infancy.
Thoughts: The very savvy marketing people make sure to note conspicuously on the cover that this book was written by doctors who are also parents. And you know what? That's a pretty useful thing to know. I'm not one of those people who believe that "one mom's simple trick to losing a belly" is automatically a smart diet plan or that a schoolteacher is likely to invent a cold prevention drug that the pharmaceutical companies couldn't. I prefer to leave my medicine to people who have actually been trained and practice it, thank you. But at the same time, there's a huge emotional component to pregnancy, and knowing the authors went through this themselves is actually reassuring.
And it's a good reflection of the book--this is an excellent balance between solid medical information (it tracks well with information I've obtained from other sources, including other books and websites as well as anecdotally) and reassurances that these things are normal, this too shall pass, and what is and isn't a legitimate concern.
I'd heard a lot of horror stories about the venerable What to Expect When You're Expecting, enough to scare me off. I worry too much already, I don't need to be given a good dose of hypochondria on top. I was relieved to find that the Mayo Clinic, while blunt, is not particularly prone to scare-mongering. There are the endless lists of symptoms, of course--pregnancy involves some truly horrifying symptoms, even the relatively benign ones, that go way beyond the stereotypical craving pickles thing. And they don't want you to freak out and think you're abnormal and going to die when your feet change size or your eyes stop focusing or various parts of your anatomy abruptly change color. But they're very soothing about it all--they explain how likely various things are to happen, why they happen, what it means, what to do about it, and when to actually consider it a problem. Oh, and for most of the symptoms, assure you it's temporary and tell you when it's going to go away.
I think the part that finally really won me was the chapter on serious complications. Which they flat out tell you at the beginning of the chapter not to read unless you actually develop one of the conditions, because they're all extremely unlikely and reading this would just freak you out.
Like most of the rest so far, I took their advice.
And how has that been going for me? Pretty well so far. They've been mostly right, and following along with the pictures and week-by-week explanations is fun. There are some minor disagreements between the book and my doctor, so I'm taking the most conservative advice. And they missed one really big symptom for me, but it's apparently relatively rare except within a certain subset of people. Since the reason What to Expect has gotten so bloated and scary is that they try to include every possibility, no matter how unlikely, I can't complain too much about them not mentioning something that's benign, untreatable, and only affects people who have previously broken their tailbones. (Turns out, that comes back to haunt you. Curse you, sixth-grade me!)
Check back next year, I suppose, but so far so good.
Authors: Roger Harms and Myra Wick
Genre: Pregnancy guide
Thingummies: 5
Synopsis: Pretty much everything you could want to know about pregnancy and the first few weeks of infancy.
Thoughts: The very savvy marketing people make sure to note conspicuously on the cover that this book was written by doctors who are also parents. And you know what? That's a pretty useful thing to know. I'm not one of those people who believe that "one mom's simple trick to losing a belly" is automatically a smart diet plan or that a schoolteacher is likely to invent a cold prevention drug that the pharmaceutical companies couldn't. I prefer to leave my medicine to people who have actually been trained and practice it, thank you. But at the same time, there's a huge emotional component to pregnancy, and knowing the authors went through this themselves is actually reassuring.
And it's a good reflection of the book--this is an excellent balance between solid medical information (it tracks well with information I've obtained from other sources, including other books and websites as well as anecdotally) and reassurances that these things are normal, this too shall pass, and what is and isn't a legitimate concern.
I'd heard a lot of horror stories about the venerable What to Expect When You're Expecting, enough to scare me off. I worry too much already, I don't need to be given a good dose of hypochondria on top. I was relieved to find that the Mayo Clinic, while blunt, is not particularly prone to scare-mongering. There are the endless lists of symptoms, of course--pregnancy involves some truly horrifying symptoms, even the relatively benign ones, that go way beyond the stereotypical craving pickles thing. And they don't want you to freak out and think you're abnormal and going to die when your feet change size or your eyes stop focusing or various parts of your anatomy abruptly change color. But they're very soothing about it all--they explain how likely various things are to happen, why they happen, what it means, what to do about it, and when to actually consider it a problem. Oh, and for most of the symptoms, assure you it's temporary and tell you when it's going to go away.
I think the part that finally really won me was the chapter on serious complications. Which they flat out tell you at the beginning of the chapter not to read unless you actually develop one of the conditions, because they're all extremely unlikely and reading this would just freak you out.
Like most of the rest so far, I took their advice.
And how has that been going for me? Pretty well so far. They've been mostly right, and following along with the pictures and week-by-week explanations is fun. There are some minor disagreements between the book and my doctor, so I'm taking the most conservative advice. And they missed one really big symptom for me, but it's apparently relatively rare except within a certain subset of people. Since the reason What to Expect has gotten so bloated and scary is that they try to include every possibility, no matter how unlikely, I can't complain too much about them not mentioning something that's benign, untreatable, and only affects people who have previously broken their tailbones. (Turns out, that comes back to haunt you. Curse you, sixth-grade me!)
Check back next year, I suppose, but so far so good.
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no subject
Date: 2012-07-26 03:48 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-07-26 05:22 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-07-26 05:37 am (UTC)From:And - I really value your review of this book. When it's my turn to deal with all the weird symptoms and side effects, this is exactly what I'm looking for. I too can be a hypochondriac on this kind of thing so it's really helpful to hear.
*huge hugs to the chewbecca*
no subject
Date: 2012-07-26 05:39 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-07-26 07:10 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-07-26 08:05 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-07-26 11:52 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-07-26 12:50 pm (UTC)From:Congrats!
no subject
Date: 2012-07-26 02:25 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-07-26 02:53 pm (UTC)From:Mazel tov~
no subject
Date: 2012-07-26 03:02 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-07-26 08:24 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-07-26 09:46 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-07-26 11:23 pm (UTC)From:It's a good book. Although their suggested prenatal exercises seem to only be useful if the first time you ever exercise in your life is month 8. I tried to run through them this morning--it felt so utterly pointless.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-26 11:23 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-07-26 11:23 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-07-26 11:24 pm (UTC)From:As I mentioned, it doesn't cover absolutely everything. But the rarer stuff you can look up yourself--this just gives you a good idea of what to expect, in a calm manner.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-26 11:24 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-07-26 11:24 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-07-26 11:25 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-07-26 11:25 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-07-26 11:25 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-07-26 11:26 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-07-26 11:26 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-07-26 11:26 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-07-26 11:28 pm (UTC)From:And OMG, sitting next to trinityvixen while she declared she can magically tell babies' genders--it was all I could do not to blurt "so which am I carrying, then?"
no subject
Date: 2012-07-27 12:35 am (UTC)From:Apparently I'm a little slow. My first thought on seeing the title of the review was "wow, she does have some broad reading interests."
no subject
Date: 2012-07-27 12:35 am (UTC)From:[Man, that would've been an awesome way to tell us! Though, uh, not so much the best way to tell them, if they didn't know. :P]
I think what got me wondering was our conversation about my OB/GYN rotation in the car on the way down. Some of your remarks made me realize you'd been doing your research, and knowing you, I wondered if your knowledge might be a little more firsthand than you were letting on. Then later in the weekend, a non-reaction of Chuck's set off my radar again -- he had that deliberately neutral look on his face that he gets when passing secret messages at gaming, and it got me wondering. In any case, it was a very fleeting thought, and I'd dismissed it from my head entirely until I saw the title of this review post and gave a little hoot of joy.
Or maybe a big hoot of joy. I'm just saying. I love you guys. :D
no subject
Date: 2012-07-27 10:47 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-07-27 10:49 am (UTC)From:Yeah, there were definitely a couple sentences that came out of my mouth and then I immediately thought "Shit! Shouldn't have said that! Shit!"
no subject
Date: 2012-07-28 01:35 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-07-28 02:21 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-07-29 03:40 pm (UTC)From:So, congrats! You and Chuckro are incredibly foxy, seeing as I asked him in February about when you guys were going to start, and I got "maybe in a year" as a response. Thought that meant you'd start TRYING then. Tricksy hobbitses.
As for what you're having, by the time I got to the end and figured out you were actually making an announcement, I didn't have a strong feeling. Once I read your thread about joking about asking me, I did get a short but strong and immediate "boy" sense. It was fleeting. When I actually calm down and stop freaking out a bit about peoplein my friends group having babies, I can maybe concentrate harder on it.