(Three Stars) - Has some points; may be useful to some. Consider buying it if you spot it used; check it out of the library.

(Two Stars) - Not totally devoid of value; may have some well-hidden redeeming features, but in general don't waste your time.

(One Star) - Worthless junk; don't waste your money. If you get it as a gift, trade it in for something else.

I should acknowledge here that the book does contain a large amount of useful and factual information. However, so do dozens of other pregnancy books on the market. This book ALSO contains what my doula refers to as the "fascist pregnancy diet," archaic and unhelpful information about childbirth and delivery, and (in my opinion) an insufficiently strong endorsement of breastfeeding. Many women complain that this book also terrifies them, providing a detail account of every possible thing that could go wrong during the pregnancy. That didn't bug me nearly as much as the diet. (I skipped those parts, out of a weird superstitious fear that reading about complications would make them happen.)

The fascist pregnancy diet is referred to throughout the book as the "Best-Odds Diet." The authors primly assure you that while a handful of people HAVE managed to have healthy babies while living on a diet that includes such nutritional indiscretions as pasta, bagels, and the occasional candy bar, they were just lucky. They go on to prescribe their diet (which allows you to "cheat" by having as much as a single bagel each week, and a candy bar once a month) for every pregnancy discomfort from morning sickness to insomnia. Personally, when I had morning sickness, white bread was one of the few things that didn't make me feel sicker (and ice cream, oddly enough, often made me feel better — which is why I suspect it's such a mainstay of many women's pregnancies).

Having attempted to convince you that a pregnancy diet that contains white bread will probably cause your baby to be born without a head, they go on to assure you that "Millions of happy, healthy babies have been raised on the bottle." The encouraging-but-lukewarm attitude towards breastfeeding wouldn't bother me quite so much if they weren't so militant about their stupid diet. Breastfeeding your baby is way, WAY more important than abstaining from white bread while you're pregnant. Clearly, they're concerned about not making moms feel guilty for choosing not to breastfeed — but they don't hesitate to load on the guilt if you deviate from their diet. Oh, and just in case you WERE planning to breastfeed, they have a Best-Odds Breastfeeding Diet to discourage you from doing so. (For the record: if you subsist on a diet of Twinkies and Pepsi, this won't be very good for YOU, but your milk will still be better for your baby than ANY infant formula.)

The information on childbirth is obnoxious in its own way. WTEWYE encourages you to "discuss" with your obstetrician (of course you're seeing a doctor, not a midwife) whether it's okay for you to do such radical things as not lie flat on your back with your feet strapped into stirrups. Overwhelmingly, the attitude is that your doctor Knows Best and having tentatively expressed the opinion that you might like to be able to walk around during labor, you should be a good girl and do whatever your doctor tells you. The fact is that some hospital policies are actively detrimental to mothers and babies -- and the other fact is that it's YOUR BODY, and (in a U.S. hospital, at least), you can refuse to consent to unnecessary interventions. In fact, you can refuse to consent to necessary interventions, if you want. To help me make an educated decision on which interventions I was willing to accept as necessary, I did a fair amount of reading during my pregnancy. I found this book to be not even vaguely helpful in that regard.

There is useful information in here, but for goodness' sake don't use this as your ONLY reference. I recommend the Sears "Pregnancy Book" and "The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth" by Henci Goer.

Note from 2005. I am still not a fan of the What to Expect franchise, though their status as cultural icon seems to have faded a bit anyway. They released a new edition a few years ago, and apparently in interviews confessed that their insane fascist diet was an attempt to get pregnant women to eat some nutritious food rather than subsisting on a diet made up entirely of junk -- and they were writing to the lowest common denominator. Now, personally, I'd have thought that the lowest common denominator wouldn't read pregnancy books anyway, so maybe they should have cranked their respect for their audience up a notch? Or two? But who knows.

There is some flat-out inaccurate information in this book, unfortunately. Like WTEWYE, they give a lukewarm endorsement of breastfeeding (breastfeeding is one of the most important things you can do for your baby's health) and then tell you that you have to wean if you get pregnant, and that you shouldn't breastfeed for more than a year. One year is the MINIMUM recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics; the World Health Organization recommends that you nurse for two years. (And the latest research says that breastfeeding for two years will cut YOUR risk of breast cancer by 50%!) It is MOST important for a baby to get breastmilk during that first year of life — but you certainly shouldn't feel obligated to stop nursing at 12 months. Breastmilk DOES continue to have significant benefits into the toddler years. And many women nurse while pregnant. Some women have to wean (because nipple stimulation can cause contractions, and in some high-risk pregnancies, that's a big issue) and some women want to wean (because their breasts hurt), but if you aren't in either one of these categories, you can feel free to breastfeed during pregnancy and go on to tandem nurse (nursing both the new baby and the toddler) if you want to.

There is actually plenty of useful information in here. I like the information on baby development; I read up each month to get a preview of what's coming, and what milestones my baby passed months ago (like most mothers, I pay way too much attention to whether my baby is "ahead"). They also have some good ideas on how to talk to your baby, and so on. But I like "The Baby Book" by William and Martha Sears a lot better.

Note from 2005. Yeah, with my second child, I still found their little checklist of skills entertaining, and their advice on the importance of weaning annoying. I'm still nursing my almost-two-year-old, and Arelene and Sandee can take their twittering over how there's no evidence that children are harmed by nursing past a year, and stuff it somewhere they don't have to put sunscreen.

One cautionary note — new research is being done every day. Goer doesn't think that routine cesarians for breech births are necessary. However, a study was recently completed (in late 2000) on vaginal vs. cesarian deliveries for breech babies, and the conclusion was that cesarian deliveries were significantly safer for the baby while not posing a major additional risk to the mother. The difference was big enough that the study was ended early. I have no doubt that Goer will include this study in future editions of her book (even if she doesn't fully accept its recommendations).

Note from 2005. I still like this book and recommend it regularly to pregnant friends. In the news a few months ago was the brand-new exciting discovery that in fact episiotomies are not a good idea: they increase the risk of a really bad tear, they do not heal better than tears, and in general they were never a good idea and doctors should stop performing them. Well, this is not really new data, and that information was in this book back in 2000 (and earlier). Of course, many doctors out there are still performing them. It's infuriating to me, because I want my care providers to be treating me based on the medical evidence, not superstition and tradition.

I also highly recommend THIS particular book. While some women swear by "The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding," I found "So What's What They're For!" to be much more readable. It's funny, and the humor doesn't get in the way of the truly useful information packed into the book. The humor makes it much easier to actually sit down and READ it while you're still pregnant.

Note from 2005. I think I re-read this while pregnant with Kiera. It was still funny. It leaves out some information I would have found quite useful with both girls. It's probably not a bad idea to read a couple of breastfeeding books while pregnant, actually, but this is still a good place to start.

Please note that if you are, I'm not dissing you. I have some good friends and close relatives who definitely fall into this category, and I would absolutely recommend this book to them. Personally, I think pregnant women look great, and I actually looked forward to having a big belly to show off, so I didn't find my weight gain to be the trauma that Vicki Iovine apparently did. (But then, I never posed for Playboy—which Vicki Iovine apparently did, according to the author bio on the book!) I had a drug-free childbirth, I never wear makeup, and I subscribe to Mothering magazine (which I don't think Vicki and her girlfriends would be into AT ALL). I did find the book very funny — it IS really very funny — but I couldn't always relate.

There is some useful information in here. She has some suggestions for a pregnancy wardrobe that I found quite helpful, even though I wasn't nearly as worried as she was about looking pregnant. She has some common-sense suggestions about coping with morning sickness and heartburn, and a miscellany of other tips and anecdotes that are pretty amusing.

In my case, though, I was glad I hadn't spent the money to buy it new. (I found it used.) This is definitely a case, however, where your mileage may vary.

This is one of a series of books on pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting, by pediatrician William Sears and his wife, Martha. I really like this series of books. Dr. Sears promotes a style of parenting he calls "Attachment Parenting" (AP). AP encourages breastfeeding; holding your baby as much as possible or "wearing" him or her in a sling; co-sleeping; and generally trying to meet the baby's needs as much as possible.

There are some people who claim that Dr. Sears is an extremist. I disagree. Sears encourages you to follow your instincts and acknowledges that co-sleeping and babywearing are not for every parent or every baby. However, he gives you "permission" to do things (like co-sleeping) that are not the norm and may be discouraged by society generally. After reading Dr. Sears's books, I decided that I didn't want to co-sleep. But when the baby came and I took her to bed because we both slept so much better that way, I found Dr. Sears's attitude on the subject to be tremendously reassuring.

The Baby Book is a fairly complete new-parent manual, covering most of the same topics as "What to Expect the First Year," from newborn care to sleep to starting solids. I highly recommend it.

Note from 2005. Okay, I admit it. This is the review that made me decide to update the page.

It's not that I've decided that the parenting style Sears advocates is a bad idea. As of this writing, Kiera is almost two, still nursing, and in bed with me for part of the night. However, I have some issues with Sears.

1. He's patronizing. Do I need to elaborate here? Okay, I'll give one example: calling any style that differs from his "detachment parenting."

2. His solutions are often wildly impractical in the real world. Taking your baby to work in a sling may work for mothers of mellow babies who have extremely informal jobs. For the rest of the mothers (and fathers) out there, not so much. Also, the idea that an attachment-parented baby is so happy and content that they can simply go with you anywhere -- that is such a crock! Well, it worked well with Molly, who was the perfect AP baby and was happy as a clam as long as she was being held. However, Kiera was colicky and spent hours screaming no matter what we did.

3. His anti-cry-it-out stance has encouraged some truly dysfunctional parenting. Now, I'm not saying for one minute that it's dysfunctional to respond promptly to a crying baby. I absolutely agree that a baby cannot be spoiled; that when you respond quickly to a baby, you're teaching them that they can trust you. However, a toddler can be spoiled. A toddler can manipulate you. And crying at bedtime does, eventually, go from cry-it-out to "okay, this is a preschooler who doesn't want to go to bed and is throwing a fit. Goodnight, sweetheart."

4. Some of his groupies are downright freaky. I'm not sure to what extent Dr. Sears can be blamed for this. But there are some appallingly self-righteous people out there who are convinced that attachment parenting is The One True Way to Parent and that everyone else is (a) misguided or (b) abusive. If you're a huge fan of Dr. Sears who is reading this, I'm not saying that you are freaky, just to be clear. I mean, I was never freaky. Or at least, I was only a little freaky.

Anyway. I have some other issues with Sears, but those are the big ones.

This is one of a series of books on pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting, by pediatrician William Sears and his wife, Martha. I really like this series of books. Unlike WTEWYE and many other birth books, this assumes that you may consider a hospital birth, a birth center birth, OR a home birth. It also strongly encourages seeing a midwife and hiring a doula. My favorite part of the book were the birth stories in the back.

As suggested by the book, I hired a doula (a professional labor support assistant—a woman who does not perform medical tasks, but provides emotional and physical support to the mother during labor). I HIGHLY recommend hiring a doula, unless you have an experienced friend who can definitely fulfill that role.

Like "The Girlfriend's Guide to Pregnancy" (though in a radically different way), this book is unquestionably THE book for birth for some women. I found it a little too whoo-whoo and a little too "out there." I did do some of the things the book suggests, including my own form of birth art. (I didn't make a belly cast—even if I'd planned to, I think I'd have changed my mind given the PUPPP—but I did go to a photographer to get photos taken of me with my big pregnant belly.)

I also found the self-hypnotism idea kind of useful, though not quite in the way the book suggested. The author of the book notes that she particularly feared a really long labor, so for weeks and weeks leading up to the birth, she repeated a rhyme to herself: "I will only be in labor for as long as it takes / to make, bake, cool, and frost a chocolate cake." And she had a very short labor. So I repeated to myself that my rash was going away. Also, each time I started to tell myself that the rash was going away, the author's rhyme popped into my head as well. And I had a 5 1/2 hour labor. For what it's worth.

I think — and I want you to understand that I am absolutely serious about this — that Gary Ezzo is an actively evil man. I am not convinced that there is an entity that could be called "Satan," but if there is one, I think Gary Ezzo is in league with him.

His books are full of major medical inaccuracies. (The earlier editions of his books are particularly bad; some of the errors have been corrected, in part because so many Ezzo babies were suffering from failure-to-thrive.) Many of these inaccuracies are particularly destructive to breastfeeding — such as the claim that breasts need time to refill (actually, the more often you nurse, the more milk you'll have; if you suffer from supply problems, the most important thing you can do is to nurse more frequently), and the claim that demand-fed babies are more likely to be colicky (this is total and complete bunk).

But the issue of feeding schedules is only one of the many objections that I have to Ezzo's philosophy. There are people who HAVE to put their babies on a schedule. (As one mother of twins I know commented, "When you have multiples, they give you permission to be mean to your babies.") They work for some babies and for some parents. But there's much more to these books than just that. Ezzo claims that babies need to be left alone in playpens for long periods of time. Now, I have no problem with parents who use a playpen to safely stash their baby while they bring in groceries, go to the bathroom, take a shower, and accomplish other brief but critical tasks. I believe in holding babies as much as possible, but even in very attentive families, it's not always possible. However, no parent should feel that by NOT sticking their baby in a playpen, they're doing something WRONG.

One thing I've found particularly interesting are the objections I've seen to Ezzo's philosophies from a Christian perspective. Though Babywise is a secularized version of Ezzo's program, the original version ("Preparation for Parenting") was explicitly Christian, claimed that scheduling your baby and letting him cry (etc.) were Biblical, and claimed that this method would allow you to raise "Godly" children. (It's worth noting that Dr. Sears is also a Christian, though his books are secular. He has written a number of essays on why Attachment Parenting is a good approach for Christian parents.) Anyway, one of the objections I've read to Ezzo's philosophy that seemed particularly on point was that Ezzo takes a thoroughly non-Christian approach to parenting by characterizing children as (essentially) a burden, rather than a gift from God. I found this to be a really intriguing observation, and it's certainly true. Parenting is a burden to be cast aside as much as possible — hence, Ezzo recommends that you set aside "couch time" each day for the mother and father to talk exclusively to each other with the children present. Now, I think it's an EXCELLENT idea to allow your children to see that their parents love each other very much. However, it's absurd to say that in order to demonstrate to your children that you and your spouse are important to each other, you need to spend a set time each day ignoring them. (It's particularly absurd to say that a tiny baby should be carefully set aside so that he can observe his parents ignoring him.) When my husband returns from his job on weekdays, he takes time when he comes in to reconnect with BOTH of us — both me and Molly. There are a million ways in which parents today get the message that children are a burden to be endured, rather than a gift to rejoice in. It's appalling that this message would come as well from an explicitly Christian book like Preparation for Parenting (or its secularized cousin, for that matter).

It goes on and on. If you get one of these books as a gift, get rid of it. Don't even keep it in the house; it will only undermine your confidence. (These books are startlingly seductive. And there ARE a few good ideas in them; I mean, there's nothing wrong with teaching your baby sign language, though I'd say there's a whole lot wrong with hitting your baby if she doesn't use sign language when you want her to. But there are no good ideas in these books that you can't find elsewhere, and you have to wade through a huge amount of toxic garbage to find a handful of useful nuggets.) If you do get one of these books as a gift, one thing that's useful to know is that Barnes & Noble and Borders will generally exchange pretty much any book, even if it was purchased elsewhere. Just say you got it as a gift and don't want it. They may give you trouble if it's something that they would NEVER carry, but in most cases, they can just return it to the publisher if no one buys it, so it's no big deal.

Note from 2005: Uh, yeah. I stand by every bad thing I've ever said about Ezzo. If you want to read more about him, check out http://www.ezzo.info.

This book is a hot topic in certain Attachment Parenting circles (it's a real hit among readers of the magazine Mothering, for instance). I found it very intriguing but scientifically questionable and frequently impractical.

The premise of the book is the human babies are born expecting a particular sort of treatment: to be held all the time (what the author calls the "in-arms phase"), to have the opportunity to observe adult activities and then gradually join in as a toddler, to be carried energetically rather than carefully even when very young. Adults in industrial societies are neurotic because we have broken the continuum: we weren't held as babies, our needs weren't met, hence all our problems.

I think it's clear that babies want to be held pretty much all the time. The author really does mean all the time, though, which is part of what I'm talking about when I say the book isn't very practical. In the U.S., to hold your baby all the time would require that you never travel by car, since that requires the use of a carseat. There are some cities in the U.S. where it's possible to completely avoid car travel, but in most cities a car is necessary for basic things like grocery shopping. Even enthusiastic baby-wearers will suggest that you avoid slinging your child while cooking at a hot stove, for safety reasons. And I've never figured out a way to hold my baby while I take a shower.

The author also makes a wide variety of questionable claims, none of which are documented. She cites as fact various stories about human children raised by wolves — I'm pretty sure these are ALL mythological (though it's possible I'm wrong). She spent some time with a particular South American tribe, and is very enthusiastic about them — in a way that strikes me as almost naïve. Yes, she lived with these people for quite a while. (In fact, she notes at one point that she had brought medical supplies and some basic medical skills, and because of that, the tribe prevented her from leaving. There's a very interesting subtext to this book that she doesn't get much into — this being her own story.) Nonetheless, her idyllic attitude towards the lives of the people she studies is reminiscent (for me) of a particular "ah, the noble savage and his pure and perfect lifestyle, if only we could be so perfect" style of ethnography that I find patronizing beyond words. Now, it's possible that the tribe she studies really IS as constantly happy as she claims, but most societies in most eras have had a dark side.

She also claims that none of the children in the tribe she lived with ever hurt themselves by falling into fires, stepping on knives, etc., despite the fact that for obvious reasons this tribe didn't exactly childproof their homes. Having lived in a Nepali village for a few months, I'm hugely dubious about this claim. Every child and adolescent in my host family had a small scar somewhere on their face; I asked one day about the scars and found out that every single one of these children had gotten the scar the same way: they'd fallen out of a window when very small. (Though all the houses in the area were two or three stories high, none of the windows had glass. They were shuttered at night and during rainstorms.) The claim that none of the tribal children were EVER injured by the hazards in their environment is the sort of claim that makes me dubious about the whole book.

Want to sleep with your baby? Pick up this book for a large compilation of facts and anecdotes that will encourage and reassure you. This book is humorously and engagingly written. Unlike "Continuum Concept," the facts cited are scrupulously documented. Unfortunately, the source for some of the citations is "Continuum Concept." At any rate, however, this book includes a lot of useful, practical information on co-sleeping, including suggestions for weaning a child from the family bed.

I should note right away that the copy I have is the first edition, written in 1972. There is a new edition that was updated in 1999, which I suspect would merit 4 or 5 stars. If I had read this book in 1972, I think it would also have merited 4 or 5 stars.

I got this book as a gift from a cousin. I suspect it was her copy, which she no longer needs (her kids are all teenagers, at least) and figured she'd pass along to me. I read it with some interest. Though plenty in here is accurate and useful, there's also quite a lot of outdated information, and a dearth of some rather critical information that many new moms would want. For instance, though it includes some beautiful pictures of nursing babies, there aren't any good diagrams to explain correct latch-on. The book includes instructions on how to "toughen" your nipples for nursing ("with a rough washcloth, rub them briskly when you take your daily shower") — a procedure now known to be both painful and unnecessary. (You don't have to do anything to "prepare" your breasts to nurse.) The book includes no information on the danger of nipple confusion. It says that once your baby is 3 months old, if you need to give a bottle, you can give just regular cow's milk, straight from the fridge. (Most doctors today will recommend that if you need to give something other than breastmilk, it should be formula for the first year — unprocessed milk is too hard on the baby's kidneys. At the very least, no one today would recommend unprocessed cow's milk before six months at the outside.) Finally, the book contains very little information about breastpumps and returning to work — a major concern for many mothers today. ("So That's What They're For!" contains lengthy and detailed information on breastpumps — which are the best, how to use them, how to maximize your pumping sessions, etc.)

My point here is not to dissuade you from buying the current edition of "The Complete Book of Breastfeeding." It's that when you're preparing to breastfeed your baby, you need a CURRENT book. This is not a time to pick something up at your local garage sale, or even to pick up the next-most-current edition at Half Price Books. Go ahead and buy the LATEST edition of "The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding" or "So That's What They're For!" or "The Complete Book of Breastfeeding" or whichever book you decide is right for you. (Or all of them!) New data on breastfeeding is constantly being discovered: breaking news today mentioned that breastfeeding for two years will cut your lifetime risk of breast cancer in half. That's worth knowing.