You & Your Baby Pregnancy: The Ultimate Week-By-Week Pregnancy Guide

I bought this for my sister who is pregnant for the first time and she LOVES it. I also checked out several other popular pregnancy books from the library for her and she kept going back to this one and did not want any of the others. Dr. Riley goes into great detail from week to week about the development of the baby, what the mother could be experiencing and what can be expected and yes she does cover the negative aspects. No one wants to read or hear about what bad situations could occur but it is better to be informed of what could go wrong than be surprised if something does happen. It is a great book and I highly recommend it!

I found this book to be an excellent reference and informative of my weekly progress, as well as what to expect in coming weeks. The color photos of the baby's progress are amazing, the section layout comprehensive, the glossary and relative questions helpful. I felt it was a bonus for Dr. Riley to cover post-partum and baby care, questions and information about the many pre-natal testing out there. It helps educate and inform without overloading the reader. I felt the book was easy to understand, educational and in my opinion this is one of the best books that a mom-to-be could enjoy, and have recommended it to many friends who are newly expecting.

This book is almost entirely week by week information, so what you get is more detailed. At the end there are small sections on feeding your baby, the postpartum weeks, and questions for your doctor. Each week has sections on Your Baby, Your Body, Your Self, Diet and Exercise, and Common Questions. It also includes a pregnancy wheel and full color photos of a fetus at different stages, which are nice bonuses. The writing is simple yet thorough and I found that the topics she chose to write about were often extremely relevent to what I was going through each week.

I am a childbirth educator and mom to four children - now happily pregnant with number five. I was really weary of the traditional pregnancy fare ["what to expect" "your pregnancy week by week" etc] - I found them full of scariness for first time moms, often inaccurate or poorly written, and, in one case, kind of creepy with repeated mention of aborting the baby for different reasons. So, I was SO pleased this time around to find this book! The book follows the "week by week" format that I really enjoy - tracking both the baby's development and the mom's changes and questions that may arise. I found the author [an OB with a very respectable set of credentials]enjoyable to read. She has a conversational style that is very informative while at the same time being very reassuring. She seemed like someone I would like if I met her in real life - someone easy to talk to who knows a lot and actually cares about people. Her "voice" gave the book a very nice "feel". She is also obviously very knowlegable and did a great job including an amazing amount of information in this book. In the first part of the book there are really neat full color photographs of babies at different stages of development... really incredible. HOWEVER, as I delved deeper into the book [I've been reading it along as my pregnancy progresses], I've been more disturbed. The first trimester section is upbeat and excellent. As we move into the second trimester though, the author starts talking more about all the testing that can be done and all the scary things that can go wrong. I question whether moms in the general population [99% of whom won't have to deal with these problems] really NEED to read about every scary, awful thing that might possibly happen? If something does go wrong, I'm sure the mother's OB or Midwife will give her tons of information, so why should every pregnant woman have to worry about every detail of every awful thing that might possibly [but most probably will not] go wrong? In addition, in the second trimester abortion is mentioned over and over. It culminates in Week 17 [page 145] with a DETAILED description of *how* a 17 week baby would be aborted and what techniques the doctor would use to kill the baby and remove it! I was really astounded and emotionally pained. I am at 17 weeks and I just can't imagine - surely very few women consider aborting at this late stage? Why on earth would the author choose to subject all her readers to this kind of description? The last thing I want to read about is babies dying - I was so excited to make it past that 12 week mark when the risk of miscarriage goes down, and now I have to read details of second trimester abortion? It just seemed bizarre to me and very discomforting. So, expectant moms be warned - you may want at the very least to skip that section! Also, this book is targeted exclusively to working mothers. There is much to be found on day care, maternity leave, e

When we had our first child my wife got all of the other pregnancy books that tracked the process week by week. We found many of them helpful but we still went to each doctor's visit with a long list of questions. We grabbed this book as a reference guide towards the end of my wife's second pregnancy and found it to be the most informative, direct, and comprehensive pregnancy book on the market. Every basic day to day question that we ever brought to our doctor was answered simply and directly in this book. If we were having a baby for the first time again, we would without hesitation make this our number one source of information outside of our obstetrician. The post partum section is great too. It really gives insight in to what it's like to have a newborn in the house and how to deal with the challenges of the first few weeks. Great book!!!!