It is a pregnancy Bible indeed. A lot of valuable information!

It felt to me like this book is out to scare moms-to-be. Instead of celebrating how normal many of our pregnancy changes are, this book makes you question any weight gain (hello, we're growing babies here! They weigh alot!)and can often take a hectoring tone. I don't think ladies need that. Check out any of the other fine pregnancy and labor books out there by Sears, Gaskin, Kitzinger, Simkin, England and others.

This book should be burned. And banned. And quite possibly run over by a car beforehand. Nothing makes an expectant mother more terrified than the horror stories in this book, and the idiot who decided an appropriate "breakfast" for a pregnant woman is half a bagel with one tablespoon of non-fat cream cheese should be coated in butter and broiled.

Very informative! This helped me get through 9 months of so many questions!

NOT PREGNANT!! I've just been following along with my sister-in-law's pregnancy, which is almost over! And I technically didn't read every chapter, just the month by month section, labor/delivery, and postpartum. It was really interesting to learn more, but I would have liked to learn even more about what's going on the baby. There were maybe four paragraphs in each chapter about baby's progress and the rest about possible symptoms (which were still really interesting). Overall I would have liked a more straightforward science-y take on things, where instead there's just a lot of puns and plays on words. I'm a fan of a good pun, but seriously every paragraph had a play on words, and that is not an exaggeration. It kept the book more conversational, but after a while it was pretty eye-roll worthy. That said, the book is packed with good information.

Horrible, judgmental book. "Overweight? Well, you should have thought of that before you got pregnant, you unworthy cow!" seems to be a common refrain. Beyond the clear prejudice and lack of helpful info for women who carry extra weight besides baby, it also lays out various pregnancy complications and the associated terror way too early in the book and with way too much detail. I had to stop reading once I hit the part about preeclampsia and then proceeded to spend the next three months terrified of this particular ailment. I've read several other pregnancy guides that handle this particular complication with grace and understanding. What to Expect When You're Expecting is simply horrible. Time for a new, more compassionate guide to take its place!

I didn't read this until the 1980s. What I liked about it was the monthly size breakdown of the fetus and what was developing during that month. Good book.

What an incredible resource, I am so glad I had this. It didn't answer ALL of my questions, but the vast majority of them were covered here. Since it also includes quite a bit of postpartum information as well, I'll probably keep it in my nightstand for a while for reference.
On to the next one!

This is essentially a textbook, so I admittedly skimmed the last half. It is organized chronologically, so eventually the info felt redundant with convos I was having with my doula or curriculum in the hospital classes. But I really, really appreciated having this handy in the beginning when it felt too early for those more official resources! It was totally written by a boomer trying to sound… less like a boomer though. Kinda amusing, kinda grating at times

I found this book very useful. I skipped over anything that wasn’t relevant to me as to not worry myself about what “could be” and used the index to find things that came up as I went along in my pregnancy. With all the literature out there for super natural childbirths and ensuring you are empowered to make decisions this one was balanced with more focus on speaking to your medical provider. No book is perfect but this was the one for me. Moving on to what to expect in the first year now but expect I’ll stop after that.

Pick a different book. It is very thorough but also pretty much everything I hate about the culture of pregnancy in America. Overly alarmist and encouraging women to make every possible (and probably unnecessary) sacrifice. I found her writing to be pretty insufferable too.

If you want a super detailed/in-depth book - I'd recommend Pregnancy, Childbirth and the Newborn by Penny Simkin instead.

Simple, straightforward, informative.
Excellent resource for first-time parents.
I should mention though I was struggling to read the last chapters - too much emphasis on complications gave me extra anxiety.