"What to Freak Out About When You're Already Freaking"
Written: Jul 05 '06
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Mentions the majority of what you're likely to look up
Cons: Condescending, simplistic, fear-inspiring, not "the last word" on anything
The Bottom Line: A boon to lazy, "old-fashioned" physicians and hospitals for the poor or ill-educated; of little real value for parents
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| kmennie's Full Review: Arlene Eisenberg, Sandee E. Hathaway, Heidi Eisenb... |
When I pulled this off my shelf, three remarkably telling things fluttered out:
-- a paper with my scribbles on it, primarily notes on better books to read
-- a bookmark/advert hustling me to buy yet more books in the series
-- something torn out from the May 2006 issue of "Glow" magazine
The magazine was the one who called it "What to Freak Out About When You're Already Freaking," in its brief skewering of "the popular pregnancy tome that turns oral sex into a loaded weapon and refined sugar into anthrax." "It's on many ob/gyns' do-not-read lists, according to The New York Times," according to them.
Unsurprisingly. I was adequately warned off this; I have only myself to blame. First, the doctor who suggested it confused "you're" with "your" when writing it down, not a ringing endorsement of a book endorser. Second, the book even looks silly -- dreadful aesthetics, and irritatingly simplistic sound-bite packaging of its contents. There is some convenience in the arrangement of the book into month-by-month what-not, with special sections for special what-not, but that's limited: the index is unreliable, and nobody really expects such clearly delineated stages. Too little information is provided about too much, a lot of it in said "sound bites." A box on p189 wonders
"NO PEANUTS FOR YOUR LITTLE PEANUT?"
Awww!! How...telling. A few other reviewers here have noted a misogynistic tone, and I can't refute that; it does read as though written for idiots. Common sense is assumed to be lacking in the audience (despite the extent to which it is in the authors). Trying to come up with a rationale for What to Expect Etc, I started to suspect its popularity might be largely due to some of the more "old-fashioned" (read: ill-educated, lazy, assembly-line workers) obstetricians. You may think rot like enemas, pre-delivery shaves, etc, are not just ill-advised but extinct -- but they're in What to Expect Etc, which can't bring itself to advise against anything if there's a chance some old fart of an MD might still like it out of habit. "Consult your practitioner" is too often the watchword. Great. If you like your practitioner, great -- all the more reason to throw the book out the window.
Back to "your little peanut" --
"...research suggests that allergic mothers (or mothers who have had allergies in the past) who eat highly allergenic foods (such as peanuts and dairy products) while they're pregnant or nursing may be more likely to pass on allergies to those foods in their offspring."
As usual, this waffles out with "speak to your practitioner" (and, given how many hours' worth of questions might come out of this book, I'm not all that clear on why some doctors push it) -- but note how it took an area in which one might reasonably not have even thought about, and turned it into: Does this mean that, because I used to have hay fever, I may be putting my issue at risk for cheese-free lives?!
The What to Expect Etc folk are notoriously strict with matters of food. I'm almost ashamed to admit to having paged through "What to Eat When You're Expecting," which is garbage. It's not that the advice to eat well is a bad one -- it's reasonably straightforward good nutrition -- it's the unnecessary belittling of anything deviating from their anhedonically strict ideas of diet. Here and there, there are things that are just wrong -- contrary to their belief, whole grains can make you just as fat as refined -- or near it; no bona-fide chef would find anything to recommend in their abominable recipes. At its best, it's condescending, or merely puzzling: has anybody craving potato chips really ever found satisfaction with a yam from the oven?
The pregnancy "philosophy" here is, for better or for worse, an extremely American one. Consumers of contemporary Western pregnancy porn will quickly note differences between countries; summarised, the British are big on pushing for Mother England -- while huffing away at the gas; Americans, oddly susceptible to intervention: induction epidural episotomy etc. (Canada, as usual, falls somewhere inbetween.) Just beware of the bias; this book is not at all for people with interests in esoterics like comfort for the mother (sleep deprivation will not harm the mother; also, an unmedicated birth is the ideal), never mind anything found outside a hospital.
Other reviewers here have enthusiastically recommended a book by a Dr Sears as a general start-to-finish manual; I liked one called "The Mother of All Pregnancy Books." This has nearly nothing to recommend it -- what useful information is in it is obscured by its condescending and simplistic style, other books do it better, and a decent web site on the topic -- of which there are hundreds -- provides just as much information, usually less offensively, and, importantly, just as reliably. A "bible" this is not -- far too much needs double-checking. If you already own a copy, you might keep it around just for comparative purposes -- but don't buy it.
Recommended:
No
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