For years I have cringed every time I ask a client what books she’s been reading in preparation for childbirth, and she happily chirps, “What to Expect When You’re Expecting!” When I owned my birth center, I had a lending library. I received so many questions about that book, that I finally bought a copy and marked it up with comments and post-it notes with rebuttals to erroneous and patronizing information presented inside, just so my clients wouldn’t waste their money buying their own copy!
Because of my long-standing disdain for this book, and my inability to to understand women’s affection for it, I dreamed that someday I would write a parody, with common-sense information for pregnancy that would help women to make informed choices that were best for them.
Recently, Jill at the Unnecesarean posted a blog that so closely reflected my thoughts on that book that I worried my ideas would seem like plagiarism. I loved her new title for the book, but wanted a title for my book that would reflect an attitude of NOT worrying about every little thing. I tried different ideas:
What To Expect When You’re Expecting
What To Fear When You’re Expecting
What to Obsess About When You’re Expecting
Nothing seemed just right. Then I had it! I would call my book:
“What Not To Expect When You’re Expecting”
I would discuss the various topics covered in that book, only from a 
common-sense approach, rather than a fear-based, “obey your doctor and don’t worry your pretty little head” approach. I truly believe that if we women can put aside all the fear that has been instilled in us about childbirth, we have a pretty good intuitive sense of when things are going normally and when they’re not, even without that book to warn us about all the things that can, and almost surely will, go wrong.
So this is my introduction to a new series, one that I hope will dispel myths about pregnancy that persist despite evidence to the contrary. I hope this series will be like a big sigh of relief, helping pregnant women to understand how amazing their bodies are, how seldom things really go wrong, and how often birth turns out right (when we let it).
I just wrote a blog post on my disdain (to phrase it lightly) for this book two days ago – I couldn’t agree with you more! http://www.stringbeancompany.com/blogs/news/1516942-best-worst-pregnancy-books
Thank you for this great resource of a website
In my first pregnancy I read Mayo Clinic Guide to a Healthy Pregnancy and liked the way it approached the week by week baby/mommy development stuff. Unfortunately the l&d section did nothing to actually help me prepare for labor.
This time, for fun, I decided to read What to Expect When You’re Expecting. I found it overall too chaotic and crowded. The l&d part seems just as useless Mayo Clinic’s was, but I was surprised to find that the book mentioned one of the symptoms I’m having this time around that I didn’t have last time and which neither my OB nor the midwife I switched to had heard of. Starting in the 4th month I could no longer wear my contact lenses. They felt terribly uncomfortable, fit wrong, and made my eyes extremely dry. I had no idea this was related to my pregnancy until I read it in What to Expect.
For that, at least, I give the book some props lol.
I’m surprised your OB/midwife have not heard of this. It is fairly common in the second trimester, when fluid volume begins to expand rapidly (up to 60%) for women to have trouble with their contact lenses. The extra fluid volume can change the fit of the lenses, causing the problems you mention. It goes away within a week or two following birth.
OK, I guess I have to grant WTEWYE a small nod!
It’s funny that you posted this…I just found out today my 16 year old cousin is 5 months pregnant. She got her ultrasound today and guess what book her doctor recommended? What To Expect When Your Expecting!! Imagine my frustration!
I would recommend buying Ina May’s Birth Book, by Ina May Gaskin, and giving it to her as a gift. Teens are amazingly open to learning about normal birth, and if they once latch on to the idea of having a normal birth, they do wonderfully! They often have not been influenced as much by negative birth stories and media, and do quite well at listening to their bodies and working with labor.
The Mayo Clinic Guide is just as bad if not worse than WTEWYE. It was the book they gave me when I had my daughter (perhaps because they got the books at cost, ahem), and I read through the whole thing. The pregnancy stuff was OK, but I completely agree, the labor stuff was useless. Last year I reread the book and realized there is ONE citation of evidence in the entire thing. Any discussions of interventions are a) not evidence-based and b) don’t present any risks or alternatives. Second pregnancy I had been teaching for awhile, so I didn’t really need a book, but I will admit I looked at the Mayo Clinic book when deciding what to do about the suggested 2nd ultrasound when the first one showed a measurement on my son measured in the “upper limits of normal”. I read the test info, laughed at the book, and declined.
I tell my patients to please only read this book as a guide not a doctrine. I recommend a local excellent child birth intructor that actually is a midwife. I used to have the midwife in my office teach the class by unfortunetly she passed from lymphoma.
Later
I got given this book by my insurance company when I became pregnant, while I refered to it for developmental marks for fetal development I though the rest of it was silly at best, but most of the time was condecending and so intervention/OB is god point of view as to be worthless, and it never seemed to have information on the side effects I was experiancing. Liked ‘A Thinking Woman’s Guide to a Better Birth’ MUCH better. Looking forward to your posts!
Thanks for this! I like to call this book, “Why pregnancy is horrible and there’s nothing you can do about it.” It’s companion book, of course, is “Why being a mom is horrible and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
It’s about time “What to Expect” was exposed for the fear mongering that it really is.
I read WTE all throughout my pregnancy last year, an I guess it never occured to me that it wasn’t the ‘pregnancy bible’ it claimed to be. Once I read this I thought “oh yeah, it was sort of negative. It did put a lot of scenarios in my head.” I still like that if something different is happening to my body I can look it up and read “don’t worry, it’s hormonal.” But I did end up have a C-Section, so maybe all that hysteria played into the overall outcome. That and the fact that c-sections do make good ‘business sense.’ Thanks for broadening my thinking, and simplifying it all at once.