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rachreads925's review
4.0
While clearly written for British expectant mothers because of the information about the NHS system, I found it really informative and helpful. Even as a second time mom, I learned more about pregnancy and childbirth. I liked the way it was broken down by topic. I read this book over the course of many months as I went through my pregnancy, reading one chapter at a time. While I'm not sure I'd recommend the book to an American mom, I would recommend it overall. *received free through NetGalley, opinions are my own*
martha_is_reading's review
informative
fast-paced
2.5
This book is written in a clear and practical way and contains some helpful information that I think I would refer back to.
There were some things I wasn’t a fan of:
- it was horribly gendered. The baby was called ‘he’ far more than ‘she’ (there’s seriously nothing wrong with ‘they’ pronouns, why do we need to pick?!), and while ‘partner’ was used quite often in an effort to be gender neutral, it still defaulted into describing the stereotypical characteristics of male partners in most places (eg. pregnancy making you gassy so you’ll fart more than him etc)
- I didn’t love the whole premise of this book being presented as ‘truth’ - pregnancy is so variable because every pregnant person and every baby is different, so truth is pretty subjective here!
- In my opinion it tipped the balance from being ‘refreshingly honest’ to being pretty brutal in places. It’s helpful to understand a lot of what is likely to happen, but to be honest it got to the point of being an absolute horror show. Every different type of birth (spontaneous vaginal, induction, assisted, C-section) had so many horrible things about it, I was left feeling even more terrified of birth than I was before! Not to mention all the stuff that happens after. I don’t want to be treated with kid gloves, and I see the huge benefits of being aware of these things, but I think the framing could have been more supportive / gentle in places to help readers come away feeling a bit more reassured rather than absolutely terrified. Perhaps more statistics to contextualise how many people experience each thing (to tackle the fear that it’s all inevitable), more stories from people who had an easier pregnancy / birth to balance out the horror stories? Coupled with my point above about this book supposedly being the ‘truth’, it has the potential to really scare a lot of people - this book will be bought by people who are likely already pregnant, the baby’s already in there so it has to come out, so helping them feel safe and confident is pretty important at this point!
There were some things I wasn’t a fan of:
- it was horribly gendered. The baby was called ‘he’ far more than ‘she’ (there’s seriously nothing wrong with ‘they’ pronouns, why do we need to pick?!), and while ‘partner’ was used quite often in an effort to be gender neutral, it still defaulted into describing the stereotypical characteristics of male partners in most places (eg. pregnancy making you gassy so you’ll fart more than him etc)
- I didn’t love the whole premise of this book being presented as ‘truth’ - pregnancy is so variable because every pregnant person and every baby is different, so truth is pretty subjective here!
- In my opinion it tipped the balance from being ‘refreshingly honest’ to being pretty brutal in places. It’s helpful to understand a lot of what is likely to happen, but to be honest it got to the point of being an absolute horror show. Every different type of birth (spontaneous vaginal, induction, assisted, C-section) had so many horrible things about it, I was left feeling even more terrified of birth than I was before! Not to mention all the stuff that happens after. I don’t want to be treated with kid gloves, and I see the huge benefits of being aware of these things, but I think the framing could have been more supportive / gentle in places to help readers come away feeling a bit more reassured rather than absolutely terrified. Perhaps more statistics to contextualise how many people experience each thing (to tackle the fear that it’s all inevitable), more stories from people who had an easier pregnancy / birth to balance out the horror stories? Coupled with my point above about this book supposedly being the ‘truth’, it has the potential to really scare a lot of people - this book will be bought by people who are likely already pregnant, the baby’s already in there so it has to come out, so helping them feel safe and confident is pretty important at this point!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Medical content, and Medical trauma
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