Tag: Parenting / Pregnancy

Tales of Real-Life Motherhood
edited by Camille Peri and Kate Moses

Another collection of true stories, on the focus of motherhood. This book really stands out from the others of its like that I\’ve read. It has excellent writing, intelligent and thought-provoking subjects. Don\’t be put off by the title. It\’s not, as I first assumed, a book about moms that are \”better\” than the rest for some reason. Not a book about how to be a parent, but what it\’s like to be a parent. Mothers who Think is about moms who remain themselves, how they work parenting into every other aspect of their lives. The stories aren\’t sugar-coated nor are they complaining; most are painfully honest and have an emotional depth that will touch you in one way or another. Everything from difficult pregnancies to mothers struggling to raise their children alone, one with an autistic son who wants to play soccer. Mothers who deal with knowing their kids are miserable at school, who face loosing control when they\’re angry, who have to raise their children in bad neighborhoods, who go through a mess of issues in family court. There are stories of adoption, of loosing a child, of sibling rivalry and non-participant husbands. Some of the stories are sad, or laugh-out-loud funny, others just incredibly deep. I wish I had this book in my hands now to read it all over again. I remember at the time I even had my husband read three of the essays so we could discuss them. It\’s that good (usually he finds my parenting reads boring!)

Rating: 4/5 ….. 282 pages, 1999

more opinions at:
1330V

A Story of Disability, Pregnancy and Birth
by Anne Finger

Even though I read it some years ago, I still remember how this book took me by surprise. When I picked it up I just thought it was about a woman dealing with a long pregnancy, having a child born past the due date, but there\’s so much more than than. It\’s about a woman disabled by polio who is a strong feminist, worked in an abortion clinic and is an advocate for disability rights. She finds herself with a possibly risky pregnancy. Her story dealt with a lot more political issues than I\’d considered before regarding women and birth choice. Making the author\’s decisions even more complicated are the facts that she has bad memories of hospital experiences as a child when doctors tried to correct her limp. She wants to have a home birth but things don\’t go well and she ends up in the hospital with scary complications and the possibility of a baby with brain damage. I don\’t know which part was harder to read, about her difficulties being pregnant with a physical disability, or the heartwrenching weeks she spent in the hospital watching her baby get poked, prodded and tested in the neo-natal intensive care unit, never sure from one day to the next if he would be okay. Past Due is one of those books that\’s very hard to put down, but I don\’t know if I\’d recommend it for a first-time mom to read (like I did!) It can be very intense.

I read this one (from the library) before being aware of the author\’s other works. Now I want to read her more recent book, Elegy for a Disease, which is about her childhood experiences.

Rating: 4/5 ……. 203 pages, 1990

More opinions at:
Baxter Sez 
Library Thing
Literature Arts and Medicine Database
anyone else?

by William and Martha Sears

At the time I read this book (seven years ago) it seemed very complete and informative to me. The Birth Book covers such topics as how to prepare yourself for birth, both pyhsically and mentally, how to research all your options, how to manage pain during birth, and what the birthing experience might actually be like. It includes lots of medical information as well as first-hand accounts of many different mothers\’ experiences. Well-illustrated, too. There are quite a few drawbacks, though, which actually make me hesitate to recommend it. First, it\’s been seventeen years since this book went into print. A lot has probably changed in that time and I\’m sure there is better, more up-to-date information out there. Secondly, the authors lean very heavily towards natural childbirth. When I was expecting my first child, I was very interested in natural childbirth and so appreciated reading about doulas, water births, midwives, having your baby at home, etc. However it turns out that going au natural was not the best choice I could have made. The Sears\’ methods for \”managing pain\” didn\’t work for me at all. Theirs is not the only book I read on natural childbirth, nor did I avoid books about traditional hospital methods, so I\’m not blaming the book for my expectations. But I do feel that it helped encourage my hopes of doing it all-natural and heightened my uneasiness with interventions and medications. So my suggestion is- if you\’re a very strong woman and know for sure you want a natural birth, this book is useful. If you\’re uncertain about it or a first-time mother, be sure you read some other opinions. The Birth Book is really biased in favor of home births (and other alternatives) and rather negative towards hospitals and doctors. Take it all with a grain of salt.

Rating: 3/5 …….. 269 pages, 1994

by Lennart Nilsson

Can you tell what my subject of interest is right now? I\’m not yet reading the pregnancy books, sticking to my TBR shelves for a while, but I\’ve been looking back at titles I read the first time \’round (but didn\’t write about) and recalling what I can of them. This is one I\’d thought of sharing with my daughter (except my library doesn\’t have it), if just for the images. She\’s quite curious about how the baby grows and what it looks like at each stage of development: does it have fingernails yet? eyelashes? can it suck its thumb?)

 A Child is Born delivers just that. Honestly, I don\’t remember much of the text at all; I know it was chock full of information on everything from conception to infertility treatments and labor. What I remember most is the stunning pictures. This is a visual book, full of amazing images of what the baby looks like while it\’s growing inside the mother\’s womb, from the first division of cells to near full-term when you can recognize facial features. From the date of publication though, I\’d assume that a lot of the textual information in this book could be seriously out-of-date, so if you\’re going to check it out, I\’d recommend doing so mainly to appreciate the photography.

Unfortunately there\’s a disturbing note to that, too. Reading around online I found quite a few negative reviews (on Amazon, so how much can I trust that?) that said Nilssen\’s photographs (at least in the first edition), taken before sophisticated imaging technology was possible, are not of fetuses in the womb but of aborted babies (or those that were going to be). Do you find that disturbing? That this book, which comes across as a celebration of the miracle of birth is based largely on photos taken of dead fetuses? Conversely, his stunning photographs have been used by pro-lifers to support their cause. Apparently when the book first came out, people were amazed at how human a fetus looked at early stages of development, and it was wildly popular. Some of the pictures were even sent into outer space.

You can read a little more about the book here.

Hopefully someone else finds the topic interesting, as I feel I\’ll be blogging about a lot of pregnancy and baby-related books for a while!

Rating: 3/5 …….. 216 pages, 1986

anyone else read this book? what is your opinion on it?

Women Share Their Stories
by Robin Green

I read this book last time I was pregnant, but I remember it being one of the ones I enjoyed. I like reading about other people\’s real-life experiences, it\’s so refreshing after going through instruction-type books that just tell you what to do, to read instead about women who\’ve actually been through it and how they felt about things. Real Birth contains thirty-six stories, and no two are alike. The women are from all different backgrounds and live in varying circumstances: wealthy and poor, urban and rural, first-time moms and those who\’ve been through it before. They have varying viewpoints on birth: some go to the hospital, others have their babies in birthing centers or at home, and yet others find themselves in unexpected places! I appreciated that it wasn\’t a book full of feel-good stories; some of the women didn\’t plan on getting pregnant and felt ambivalent about having a baby. Others struggled with complications, cesarean and even stillbirths. But it all felt very honest and real, and the universal theme, the wonder of birth and motherhood, makes it a strong collection.

Rating: 3/5 …….. 227 pages, 2000

anyone else read this book?

the Secret Life of Breasts 
by Fiona Giles

I read this book back when I was (of course!) nursing my own child. It\’s a collection of anecdotes and stories that look at how breastfeeding is viewed in different cultures and stretches aside the curtain of taboo around it. Some of the stories and information are helpful and interesting, other chapters were (to me at least) very eccentric and bizarre. There are stories of nursing toddlers, the issues of breastfeeding in public, one incident of a mother who discovered her child had been breastfed by another woman at daycare! There there are stranger ones, of men comforting their babies by suckling them, of putting breastmilk into recipes- like homemade ice cream. Even speculations on breastmilk being sold in supermarkets. The chapters I found strangest and even disturbing broached subjects like women\’s erotic fantasies about their own breasts, or porn films starring lactating women. If you\’re interested in the subject of breastfeeding, this book is certainly an eye-opener that will entertain and shock just as much as it inspires! 

Rating: 3/5 …….. 267 pages, 2003

More opinions at:
SMS Book Reviews
Breeding Imperfection
Guerrilla Momma Medicine

Original Essays on Becoming a Mother
edited by Christina Baker Kline

A collection of essays on new motherhood, Child of Mine offers insights and honest perspectives from the experiences of new mothers who are all writers. Moms from all walks of life take a piercing look at what their first year of motherhood was like- with all of the mess, fatigue, insecurities, wonder and joy. Some of the stories are heartwarming, others sad, contemplative or just downright hilarious. Their focus may vary- from adoption, to breastfeeding, postpartum depression, struggles with poverty, feeling overwhelmed, dealing with colic, etc- and the writing styles are all different too. But the honesty and emotional intensity is a common thread, that ties all the various voices together. Whatever doubts and questions a new mother is struggling with, this book is pretty sure to have an answer in it somewhere- not a pat, dismissive everything-will-be-okay answer, but the compassion of understanding, of having been there and come through the difficulties. Now I need to find me a book like this about toddlers!

I read this book several years ago, borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 3/5 ……. 333 pages, 1997

an Oral History from Handywoman to Professional Midwife
by Nicky Leap and Billie Hunter

When I borrowed this book from the library to read (several years ago) I thought it was going to be a narrative about a midwife\’s experiences, something like Babycatcher by Peggy Vincent, or a nonfiction version of Bohjalian\’s Midwives. It\’s not. The Midwife\’s Tale is a look at the practice of midwifery in England before the National Health Service was established in the early 1940\’s. It is drawn mostly from oral histories and interviews with women who were midwives, or women who recall being tended by midwives during that time. It\’s not only a book about how midwives practiced and how women experienced childbirth in an earlier era, but how women (and society in general) viewed related issues like contraception, abortion, intercourse, motherhood and work outside the home. Also how midwifery contrasted to early doctors\’ more scientific methods and hospitalization of women, and how midwives were edged out of their profession by men. Overall a very interesting read, if a bit dry in parts.

Rating: 3/5                      215 pages, 1993

anyone written a blog review about this book? let me know and I\’ll post a link here

by Muffy Mead-Ferro

I first picked up this title just because it made me laugh. Slacker mom? I thought it was going to be a guilt confession of some mom selfishly ignoring her child, but instead what I got was a friendly, frank, down-to-earth discussion of how relaxing a bit more as a parent could be better for your kids. Parenting doesn\’t have to be a competition. Do kids really need all the lessons and coached sports, the prestigious preschools and packed schedules? Mead-Ferro points out they might do better learning how to think for themselves and come up with their own games once in a while. To learn from their own mistakes occasionally. Confessions of a Slacker Mom was right up my alley- I grew up in a family that often made do, not swamping me with the latest fad in lessons or gadgety toys. I remember spending hours playing outdoors with my sisters- one favorite activity was making mud spas for our barbie dolls in an old red ryder wagon. Talk about getting dirty! Some germs and hard knocks are okay, it helps kids be more resilient and self-reliant as they grow up. This book reaffirmed a lot of my own ideas on parenting, ones I need a reminder on from time to time. (My own daughter is pretty squeamish about getting her hands sticky, and I\’m often over protective). I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It\’s funny, thoughtful and brief enough to read in a few hours.

Rating: 3/5 …….. 137 pages, 2004

More opinions at:
Darn Good Books
A Few More Pages
The Bibliofiles

by Barbara Luke

Here\’s something you probably didn\’t know about me: I was born several months premature. When expecting my own child, I wasn\’t at risk for having a premature birth myself. But while browsing the library shelves for books about pregnancy, the title caught my eye and I was curious. Every Pregnant Woman\’s Guide to Preventing Premature Birth is based on studies done in France, where they have actually been able to lower the nation\’s rate of premature births per year. The main message is simply to take it easy while you\’re pregnant- don\’t push the vacuum cleaner, ride a jolting train, spend long hours on your feet, lift heavy objects, etc. Also info on how to recognize signs of premature labor and when to call the doctor. The section about maternity leave was kind of boring and felt longer than necessary, but overall this looks like a very useful book if you want to avoid the chances of being put on prolonged bed rest or having a premature baby.

Rating: 3/5                        239 pages, 1995

DISCLAIMER:

All books reviewed on this site are owned by me, or borrowed from the public library. Exceptions are a very occasional review copy sent to me by a publisher or author, as noted. Receiving a book does not influence my opinion or evaluation of it

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