What to expect when you're expecting (6 page)
Read What to expect when you're expecting Online
Authors: Heidi Murkoff,Sharon Mazel
Tags: #Health & Fitness, #Postnatal care, #General, #Family & Relationships, #Pregnancy & Childbirth, #Pregnancy, #Childbirth, #Prenatal care
Part 7: The Complicated Pregnancy
Foreword to the Fourth Edition
By Charles J. Lockwood, MD
The Anita O’Keefe Young Professor of Women’s Health and Chair, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, Yale University School of Medicine
T
HE OTHER DAY I RECEIVED A
wonderful, heartfelt thank-you letter from a patient. Enclosed was a picture of a strapping college hockey player—whom I had delivered 19 years before! I have the best job on earth. I get to share in the most joyful, exciting, and wondrous moment that human beings will ever experience—the birth of their child—only I get to experience it over and over and over. Sure, being an obstetrician has its share of tough moments—some very tiring ones at 3
A.M
., and some very frustrating ones, when the pace of a patient’s labor appears to be glacial. There is the occasional adrenaline rush, the patient with the challenging symptom, and the inevitable flood of complex emotions, but mostly it’s just plain fun.
In a way, my job is a lot like your pregnancy will probably be—every day will bring a little adventure, but most of them will be fun.
What to Expect When You’re Expecting
is like having a personal obstetrician to guide you through that adventure. I have been recommending this book for years and thoroughly enjoyed reading the fourth edition—because the best just got better. All new, it’s packed with information and useful advice, the kind you would hear from your favorite doctor or midwife—one who is wise but funny, thorough but practical, experienced but enthusiastic, organized but empathetic.
The book starts you off before conception with solid recommendations on what to—and what not to—do before you are expecting. It then gently guides you through conception to your first visit to a provider. It explains what changes you’ll need to make in your lifestyle, job, and diet. One of the book’s best features is a month-by-month—in fact a week-by-week—guide to how your baby is developing and what she or he is doing in your uterus. This is accompanied by a description of how
you
are developing—and not just your belly but everywhere, from your hair to your toes—and what you should be feeling. It tells you what your provider will do at each visit, and reviews what tests will be ordered and why. Toward the end, it prepares you for the big day, however you might be delivering—vaginally or by cesarean. You’ll learn about birthing plans, how to recognize real labor from false labor, and which laboring positions work. Your questions about back labor, fetal monitoring, episiotomy, pain relief, and anesthesia will be answered, even if you didn’t know to ask. Then
What to Expect
guides you through all aspects of the incredible process of birth.
The book also covers the postpartum period, providing tips for differentiating the “blues” from depression. In an important chapter, it covers complications that you can read about if they occur, or skip over if they don’t. It covers pregnancy in women with common medical conditions, such as asthma, high blood pressure, and diabetes—and how to maximize your chances of a normal pregnancy. It also covers what to do if you experience a pregnancy loss, and does it with a wonderful mix of compassion and practicality. Partners are not forgotten: The book provides a very practical guide to being a great coach. And parents-to-be of multiples are included, too. An entire chapter is devoted to their undoubtedly doubled questions and concerns.
As a maternal-fetal medicine specialist, I am impressed by just how much is covered in this book. As an editor, I am impressed by the clear, cogent, and concise writing. As a husband and father, I am impressed that the authors know just what moms-to-be and their partners need to know. The best judges of this book, however, have been the hundreds of patients who have raved about it to me, my staff, and other patients in the waiting room.
If you are reading these words, it’s likely you are either newly pregnant or about to become so. Congratulations! My advice to you is lie back, get comfortable, and read on—you are about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime.
T
WENTY-FOUR YEARS AGO, I DELIVERED
a daughter and conceived a book within a few hours of each other (it was a busy day). Nurturing both those babies, Emma Bing and
What to Expect When You’re Expecting
(as well as the next baby, my son, Wyatt—and the other
What to Expect
offspring) as they’ve grown and evolved over the years has been at once exhilarating and exhausting, fulfilling and frustrating, heartwarming and nerve-racking. And like any parent, I wouldn’t trade a day of it. (Though there was that week when Emma was thirteen … okay, make that a year. Maybe two.)
And now I’m thrilled to announce yet another delivery. A brand-new book that I couldn’t be prouder to start showing off and sharing: The fourth edition of
What to Expect When You’re Expecting
. A cover-to-cover, front-to-back revision that’s been completely rewritten from start to finish—a new book for a new generation of expectant parents (you!), featuring a fresh look, a fresh perspective, and a friendlier-than-ever voice.
What’s new in the new
What to Expect
? So much that I’m excited about. Week-by-week updates on your little one’s transformation from microscopic bundle of cells to cuddly newborn—the incredible development of your baby-to-be that will make all that heartburn, all those trips to the bathroom, all that gas, all those pains, and all the sleep deprivation more than worth it. And (speaking of heartburn and gas), more symptoms and more solutions than ever before—and more of your questions answered (even the ones you didn’t know you had yet). There’s an expanded section on working during pregnancy (as if being pregnant weren’t hard enough work!). And going from the practical to the pampered, a brand-new section on expectant beauty: how to love—or at least cope with—the expectant skin you’re in, even when it’s blotchy, pimply, rashy, itchy, too oily, and too dry; which skin, hair, nail, and cosmetic regimens you can stick with and which you’ll have to ditch until delivery. Lots on your pregnant lifestyle (from sex to travel to exercise to fashion), your pregnancy profile (how your obstetrical, medical, and gynecological backstory may—or may not—affect your pregnancy), your relationships, your emotions. A more realistic than ever chapter on expectant eating that responds to every eating style—from at-the-desk to on-the-run, from vegan to low-carb, caffeine-addicted to junk-food dependent. An expanded section on preconception, a new chapter for all you many moms of multiples. Lots more for that very important (but too often neglected) partner in parenting, the dad-to-be. And, of course, the very latest on all things pregnancy (news you can use, on everything from prenatal diagnosis to labor and delivery and beyond).
And because a cover-to-cover revision wouldn’t be complete without a new cover, there’s one of those, too. Introducing our new cover mom—off her rocker (okay … out of that rocking chair, finally), she’s embracing her belly and celebrating one of life’s most magical experiences (and the fact that pregnant women now get to wear cute clothes). She’s thoroughly enjoying her expectant self—and I, for one, couldn’t be happier for her. Almost makes me want to run out and get pregnant again (I said almost).
As always, just as important as what’s different in this fourth edition is what’s the same. When
What to Expect When You’re Expecting
was first conceived, it was with a single mission in mind: to help parents-to-be worry less and enjoy their pregnancies more. That mission has grown, but it hasn’t changed. Like the first three editions, this fourth one was written to answer your questions, reassure you, relate to you, empathize with you, and help you get a better night’s sleep (at least as good a night’s sleep as you can get when you’re busy running to the bathroom or fighting off leg cramps and backaches).
I hope you enjoy my new baby as much as I enjoyed creating it—and that it helps you as you go about creating that new baby of yours. Wishing you the healthiest of pregnancies and a lifetime of happy parenting. May all your greatest expectations come true!
