Baby Books
One thing you get a lot of when you have a newborn is advice. Everybody wants to give you their two cents on what to do and what not to do. Most people have enough self-awareness about the matter to preface their own advice with a recommendation to ignore all other advice. Other people's advice is old-fashioned, unproven or just plain wrong. In summary, the message has been, "listen to me and ignore everyone else." Moreover, I was surprised by how much of the advice from so many well-meaning people is contradictory. And not just from the amateurs; the pros disagree just as much. There is as much diversity of opinion as there are doctors, nurses and baby book authors.
One recommendation that we got over and over again was for the book, What to Expect When You're Expecting. After having so many people mention it we felt obligated to buy it. Ironically, this turned out to be the book we liked the least. Zornitza thinks that it is more comforting than information-rich. The book is so full of caveats and qualifications that the reader can get lost in a morass of politically correct verbiage. It just doesn't come across as credible. Especially annoying is that its pictures are bland and suggestive. In fact, prude, modest photos in baby books has become a pet peeve of mine: it should be okay to show full, frontal nudity in the contexts of birth and the birthing process. It's hard to take seriously a book about birth with pictures that could might as well be in Good Housekeeping magazine.
Below I list the baby books that we have liked. We are grateful to our friends and healthcare professtionals who gave these to us as gifts. We thank them for their kindness and consideration.
- Empfangnis, Schwangerschaft und Geburt(Conception, Pregnancy and Birth) by Dr. Miriam Stoppard. This is Zornitza's favourite pregnancy book as it is informative and brief. I liked it because it had high quality full-color pictures that I enjoyed looking at since I don't read German. The most notable pictures are a series of nudes of the same woman over nine months. It's amazing to see exactly what happens to a woman's body during her pregnancy. Accompanying these pictures were full-color pictures of the growing fetus, along with detailed explanations of each stage of pregnancy. She read this in German but an English version is available.
- Complete Baby & Child Care by Dr. Miriam Stoppard. In many ways this is a follow up to the previous book. It has the same high quality pictures but of babies instead of mommies. There are excellent sections on health, hygiene and behaviour.
- Unser Baby ist da! by Dr. med. Heike Kovacs, Anglika Szymczak, Tanja Kurth & Paul Suer. Another German book that Zornitza likes. She says that it's as descriptive and to the point as Stoppard's baby book except that the chapters are longer and more comprehensive. This one also happens to be co-authored by an uncle of a good friend of mine.
- Babies by the Bay by Michelle L. Keene & Stephanie S. Lamarre. My previous comments about advice notwithstanding, if you live in the San Francisco Bay Area this is a must have book. It covers much of the same information as in other baby books but it has a great local focus. It lists everything a new parent needs: baby stores, doctors, playgrounds, pre-schools, etc.
- Baby Bargins Secrets by Dense & Alan Fields. I wish I'd bought this book before we put together the nursery. In many ways, this book feels like a baby products review website except that the authors come across as credible reviewers and not marketing shills. They have chapters on everything that new parents are going to need to buy: strollers, baby seats, cribs, diapers, etc.
- Your Baby's First Year by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Ever since Sophia came home, this is the book we've been referring to most. This one was given to us by the hospital with the label of "Your baby's owner's manual." Unfortunately, I don't think that title does it justice since few owner's manuals are this well written and thought out.
Posted by payam at August 26, 2003 06:26 PM
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