I bet none of the other Zappers ever review any books in this particular genre

When I found out I was pregnant, I immediately went out looking for these two books. What to Expect, because everybody does, and Your Pregnancy, because some friends had recommended it. I believe that at least one if not both of the used bookstore-owners at whose establishments I looked for them recommended What to Expect too–”we couldn’t have gotten through without it.”

I’m giving both of these books three stars. I think anyone could get through their pregnancy just fine, and perhaps more happily, with something else. Having lived with these two for a while, I’d say from now on when it comes to medical matters I’ll consult medically-knowledgeable sources, such as my own doctor or publications by well known institutions like the Mayo Clinic. Books written by amateurs, even when they contain mostly correct information, just don’t seem to be able to put that information into proper perspective. At best this can be confusing and at worst, terrifying.

The “terrifying” aspect is the one that crops up most in Amazon’s reviews of What to Expect, where I was surprised to see the book received only 3 stars despite its popularity. Sure, all that info can be pretty frightening, and WTE does seem to emphasize the worst possible interpretation of whatever you might be experiencing. But then, so do a lot of other pregnancy resources. Maybe you want to know the worst, and WTE does use a lot of calming language about how rare most of this stuff is.

So the scare factor is one somewhat minor strike against WTE. Another is the fact that it seems to approach pregnancy as an Olympic event, rather than something that the best-meaning mother in the world has to manage alongside her job, family, and other responsibilities. Most expectant moms simply don’t have the corporate sponsorship necessary to go into training full-time for nine months. This extreme approach is especially seen in sections on diet and weight gain. The diet suggestions are pretty famous now for being completely over the top and almost impossible to follow, while weight gain is treated as a barely-necessary evil which will rightly render you anathema to yourself, your husband, and all other people with eyes.

The thing is, mom has zero control over most of the stuff that can go wrong during pregnancy. Pregnancy should be a good impetus to learn to be healthier, but there’s this lurking feeling that it’s up to mom to be perfect in every way, or else assume that anything that goes wrong is her fault.

Now, I had to stop reading WTE a few weeks ago, so I’m reviewing it without a real current knowledge of its contents. And I can’t blame it for all my pregnancy worries, but on the other hand it didn’t help that much. And the reason I had to stop reading it is because every time I did, I ended up feeling panicked and completely inadequate, like I should be doing so much more for my baby’s health, but on the other hand I couldn’t figure out exactly what.

As for Your Pregnancy (of which I have an older edition), I have similar cautions, but it comes in a much more insidious package. Every week, the book gives you eye candy in the form of line drawings of what the baby looks like that week, with accompanying info on how big he or she is and what exciting new developments are going on. Then, as you are oooing and aaaing with your spouse over how awesome the baby is, it suddenly turns on you. Without so much as taking a breath or inserting a section break, it smacks you with some horrible thing that could be going wrong with your baby. A horrible thing that could be going wrong, each week for 40 weeks. Yikes.

For example, one week offered up all the potential problems with having a baby over the age of 35. (For one thing, it’s going to be hard to find the right preschool for a 35-year-old baby…eh, you know what I meant.) Now, this might be something to take into account before getting pregnant (although even then there’s no need to present the information with such a sense of impending doom), but by week 18 it seems a bit superfluous, if not presumptuous, of Glade to suddenly start presenting the expectant mother with a bunch of unbidden statistics about what a terrible idea this was. We just want to see semi-competent line drawings of generic fetuses, that’s all.

Both of these books do present a lot of information, and a lot of people seem to like them. I can’t fault anyone for buying them, but on the other hand I suspect there are much better options out there. I’m still looking.