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.

571 of 641 found the following review helpful:

Complete + Professional + Non-Judgemental = All You Need  Apr 09, 2003
By 718 Session
When we decided to get pregnant, we read something like 25 books. One year and one baby later, I kind of feel like an expert in baby books. So let me say that this book is far and away the best pregnancy book and it is no surprise that it has been a bestseller for many years.

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.

38 of 39 found the following review helpful:

Condescending. Bossy. Causes unnecessary panic and guilt.  Sep 14, 2004
By Winifred
Like so many women, I started with this book. I wish I had never seen it.

Minor quibble: I hated the bossy and condescending tone.

Major problem: You will never be able to live up to this book. It made me feel like a complete failure, at only 6 weeks along! I suffer from terrible morning sickness, and sometimes I am lucky if I can keep food down at all. I could not live up to this book's constant hectoring to think about "baby" and follow the recommended diet no matter how I feel. But there is no way I can eat 75 grams of protein a day in my current state; there aren't enough saltines in the world. There certainly aren't any whole-wheat saltines at all, but according to this book, you are abusing "baby" if you let refined flour pass your lips. After several days of throwing up the approved whole-wheat crackers, I decided to listen to my body instead of this stupid book.

This book almost ruined my pleasure at being pregnant. Luckily I found Ann Douglas's Unofficial Guide to Having a Baby, and Sheila Katzinger's Complete Book of Pregnancy and Childbirth. They are straightforward, written for adults not imbeciles. And neither suggests you force-feed yourself 75 grams of protein a day at any time during the pregnancy, let alone while suffering from morningsickness. Judging from a quick survey of pregnancy books at the bookstore "What to Expect" is a radical outlier in some of its nutrition recommendations.

I almost threw this book out, but in the end, I put it in our donation bag for the charity shop. I guess it is better than nothing - but I would steer clear.


39 of 41 found the following review helpful:

Compelled to comment  Feb 21, 2006
By J. Black
I was 22 years old, in my second to last semester in college, about to receive my BA in Literature, sitting in my doctors office in tears and terrified to find that I was pregnant. Once the family was told, the first thing I received was this book. I am a read-a-hollic and always want to know as much about something as I can, so I dove into this book as much as my school work permitted...the further into the book I got the less I wanted to read it. This book petrified me. I was about to turn into the world's WORST mother. I am unmarried (but in a very loving, long relationship), young, work in retail (so I can finish school), can't afford to NOT work and I can't even put food in my mouth that I'm not craving. This book made me so upset and angry that I did (in a more hormonal moment) actually throw it across the room. I found that many of the Q&A sections had nothing to do with me or my pregnancy and many of my concerns were never addressed. I felt inadequate because I had not planned my pregnancy or married my "partner" before hand and found the diet plan impossible to follow. When I looked on line to find a replacement for this book I was horrified at how many people gave this book five stars. Currently, there are 801 reviews about this book and I read about half of them. Pay attention to what the low and middle ratings say, many have excellent points. My advice to mothers to be and well wishing gift givers is to pass on this book. I found it to be insulting to my intelligence, lacking in truly or current scientific backing, and inattentive to the world that most women live in (one that requires a woman to work, especially at a job that she may find fulfilling.) Don't give the gift of guilt, don't give this book.

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