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A review by theinfamousj
The Fourth Trimester: A Postpartum Guide to Healing Your Body, Balancing Your Emotions, and Restoring Your Vitality by Kimberly Ann Johnson
informative
reflective
slow-paced
2.0
I had to read this book for a postpartum doula certification I am undertaking through BEST Doula - recommend them if you want to get your own postpartum doula certification, by the way - and while having my first child as a 7 month old. Also, because my child is 7 months old, my reading had to be done via audiobook because I don't have a moment to sit down and actually look at a page in this season of my life. That aside ...
I think this book is mistitled given its contents. I don't object to the contents nor to the format with which it is organized. It is a great explainer for white people about birth-related practices around the world. However, I think it should have been two separate books (maybe three?) since the content is trying to be all things to all people and generally is mediocre at achieving that goal. Here is how I would have structured it --
Book 1: Things to know and consider BEFORE you have your baby, while you are nesting, maybe.
Book 2: How to heal from a birth injury.
If you don't have a birth injury and are already in your fourth trimester (that three months after the baby is born) there is nothing in this book for you. Hence why I knocked off a star.
A goodly deal of this book tells you how to prepare for birth which is definitely BEFORE the fourth trimester. There are a few tips and tricks about how your fourth trimester is supposed to go, but they require preparation which you likely didn't do on account of not having read this book before being knee deep in that eponymous fourth trimester.
Oh, and at one point the author tells you to take her online course that she has created to teach you more about ... whatever the topic was. I want to believe she is being earnest and trying to be helpful, believing her online course is the best resource in this instance, but I cannot shake the feeling of being marketed to in the form of a nonfiction book that goes no deeper than Wikipedia.
And I deeply disagree with the description of the feminine. It isn't un-feminine to be intensely independent; it is a trauma response. Gender and how one relates to it are not in play here. Gaaaaaah
Anyway, there's my rating and why. I highly recommend "The First Forty Days" by Oh if you want a better explanation of fourth trimester Chinese practices as conveyed by someone who is explaining their own culture rather than an outsider trying to figure out what she's seeing.
I have no recommendations *yet* for a book that offers the Hindu fourth trimester practices as there are too many good ones, again, written by Indian cultural translators rather than a white woman looking in.
I think this book is mistitled given its contents. I don't object to the contents nor to the format with which it is organized. It is a great explainer for white people about birth-related practices around the world. However, I think it should have been two separate books (maybe three?) since the content is trying to be all things to all people and generally is mediocre at achieving that goal. Here is how I would have structured it --
Book 1: Things to know and consider BEFORE you have your baby, while you are nesting, maybe.
Book 2: How to heal from a birth injury.
If you don't have a birth injury and are already in your fourth trimester (that three months after the baby is born) there is nothing in this book for you. Hence why I knocked off a star.
A goodly deal of this book tells you how to prepare for birth which is definitely BEFORE the fourth trimester. There are a few tips and tricks about how your fourth trimester is supposed to go, but they require preparation which you likely didn't do on account of not having read this book before being knee deep in that eponymous fourth trimester.
Oh, and at one point the author tells you to take her online course that she has created to teach you more about ... whatever the topic was. I want to believe she is being earnest and trying to be helpful, believing her online course is the best resource in this instance, but I cannot shake the feeling of being marketed to in the form of a nonfiction book that goes no deeper than Wikipedia.
And I deeply disagree with the description of the feminine. It isn't un-feminine to be intensely independent; it is a trauma response. Gender and how one relates to it are not in play here. Gaaaaaah
Anyway, there's my rating and why. I highly recommend "The First Forty Days" by Oh if you want a better explanation of fourth trimester Chinese practices as conveyed by someone who is explaining their own culture rather than an outsider trying to figure out what she's seeing.
I have no recommendations *yet* for a book that offers the Hindu fourth trimester practices as there are too many good ones, again, written by Indian cultural translators rather than a white woman looking in.