About the Author are public domain books free The Panic-Free Pregnancy: An OB-GYN Separates Fact from Fiction on Food, Exercise, Travel, Pets, Coffee, Medications, and Concerns You Have When You Are Expecting
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Reassuring, but simple adviceBy KanneI like the advice in this book, but it can be summed up easily. Here it goes:Outside of prescription drugs and illegal drugs pretty much everything else is fine in moderation.Yeah, that's the whole message. I actually preferred Emily Oster's Expecting Better - which has largely the same message but is super data driven if you want to dive in for that. Obviously this book is older and if you don't care about the stats it would be a good place to get a reasonable perspective on how crazy the advice can be for expecting mothers.1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Fantastic for anxious parents-to-be or anyone interested in quick-hitting pregnancy factsBy A. GoldbergMy wife is anxious. About everything. A while back, I got her a copy of Cockpit Confidential, which is a book written by a pilot which (I gather) is about all of the facts and myths of commercial air travel. It really helped to ease my wife's anxiety every time she gets on a plane. Reading about the reality of the situation--the actual numbers and stories and explanations and redundancy--totally reassured her and eliminated all of those irrational fears that an anxious person has.This book did the same thing, but for pregnancy. I wish I had bought it sooner than the 2nd trimester. While she wasn't overly anxious or panicked at all, I knew she had some concerns. She didn't know what advice to take, what risks to worry about, or what horror stories to believe. Over the course of one evening, we laid on the couch, and I read her excerpts from this book. Just jumped around to different topics that seemed relevant or interesting. It's not the kind of thing I think you need to read cover to cover. But we both came away from it feeling like we knew a lot more about the reality of pregnancy and childbirth. It confirmed a lot of my suspicions--that a lot of the advice that you hear these days is overly cautious, and that the risks in most cases are minuscule and not worth worrying over.One big takeaway was from several sections about food-borne illnesses. The bottom line in nearly all cases is that the mother should try not to get sick herself, but that she doesn't have to change her whole diet to do so. If she eats something, and it makes her sick, that's probably not going to be good for her or the baby (but even then most illnesses are minor and do not affect the fetus). But she's not more likely to get listeria or parasites or anything else just because she's pregnant. Sushi isn't going to make the baby sick by its nature alone. So if she wants to eat some sushi, she might get sick from bad sushi (or anything else) just like I might. But the risk of the mother getting something so bad that it would endanger the baby is just tiny. So have some sushi if you want it. Or a beer or two. Or whatever. And don't worry about it. Except for cold cuts and cigarettes, of course. Take care of yourself and your baby will be fine. There's nothing to freak out about.It also had good chapters about childbirth (cesarean vs vaginal, different medications, etc.), vitamins and supplements, and more. There's something in it for everyone. I enjoyed the book, and I absolutely appreciate the calming effect that it had on my anxious, pregnant partner.2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Good data, well written!By SarahI just wanted to add to the positive reviews of this book. I do a lot of research, sometimes too much is bad for you. For example, after finding out what a molar pregnancy is, I completely panicked. Critiquing research is also something I do. So after reading the negative reviews on the book I had to look up his references. They are sound. What he says about Motrin is true and Emily Oster in "Expecting Better" says the same thing about sushi. (I recommend expecting better, the author is an economist who read all of the studies and aggregated the data, a woman after my own heart.) Dr. Broder gives you facts and writes with wit. The book is written in a question and answer format, and makes you feel like your questions aren't weird. He doesn't try to sugarcoat risks, he states that the miscarriage rate for people who have had a previous miscarriage is 20%. That's it. So if you're looking for a book that will tell you everything will be okay, despite what the studies say, then this isn't it. But if you want to know the risks and benefits of stopping your allergy medicine this book can give you the information - and an opinion.