Eighteen years after it first hit the shelves and having sold more than 10 million copies, What to Expect When You're Expecting is still on nearly every mother-to-be's reading list. This completely revised and updated edition is packed with answers to hundreds of questions and worries expectant parents may have. The information is presented in a month-by-month format starting with planning a pregnancy and choosing a practitioner, and follows through to six weeks after delivery. Each chapter begins with an explanation of what to expect at a particular month's prenatal visit and a brief description of how mom and baby are growing and changing before getting to the heart of the matter: What You May Be Concerned About. Topics are presented as questions ranging from "Should I be taking vitamins?" to "What if I forget everything I learn in childbirth education class?" to "Will I be able to breastfeed?" The answers are generally reassuring and provide enough information to soothe a worried mom between prenatal visits. Despite the reassuring answers, however, the sheer volume of worries discussed may alarm an otherwise calm mom-to-be.

Dangerously organized and wrong

Being that the unnecessary worry thing is already covered by other reviews, I have just two comments on this book. 1. It is organized by month. Sounds like a good thing. However, since there is much that you need to know beforehand and they want the months to be roughly similar in length, they move a good deal of material later in the book. For instance, foods to avoid shows up in month 5 with the caveats that these foods should never be eaten during the pregnancy. Not so much a warning as a time bomb when you get to month 5. 2. There is a serious mischaracterization of miscarriage. The book oddly takes a comforting tone for once and tells the mother that they will "know" is something goes wrong. From friends and family, that is a baldfaced lie that tends to make ultrasounds more shocking. This book is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and worry, signifying nothing. Put another way, no doctors are listed as authors or editors. Figure out from that what you expect from what to expect . . .

Great for First Time Moms!

I just gave birth to my first baby on May 27. I read a few pregnancy books, and this one was BY FAR the most helpful and thorough book out there. It's got the answer to every single question I could have asked myself. The morning I went in to labor, I grabbed the book and started reading about false labor and contractions to see if I was really in labor or not.

The book is broken down in to sections by each month of pregnancy. The author describes what is going on with the baby during each month, what kind of symptoms you may/may not be having, and gives a list of what to expect at your doctor's appointment that month. Everything was pretty accurate and helped me to understand what changes my body was going through. It was also neat to read about what my baby looked like and how she was developing as each month passed.

Also in each section is a "frequently asked questions" type of format that had every single question and answer I could possibly think of - and tons I would never have thought of. Any time I had a question, I broke out this book and was able to find the answer. And every time I asked my doctor a question, he gave me an answer almost exactly the same as the book.

I highly recommend this book to any pregnant woman, especially first-timers like myself This book helped me through a lot of anxiety and worry about my baby. Now I've moved on to "What to Expect the First Year" and it is just as wonderful. Definitely worth all five of the stars I'm giving it!

A must for parents in foreign countries

This was a great book. My sister used it when she was pregant years ago so when I found out I was, I purchased it as well. The book is easy to read. Broken down into question and answer form. I live in Japan and my doctor doesn`t speak much english making my pregancy stressful when questions arise. Since I have no family here either and my in-laws don`t speak english as well, this book as become my pregancy bible. Since this was our first child my husband become jumpy every time I had pain or my body changed in ways we didn`t expect it too. I would simply look up in the book my concern or question and find an answer instead of running to the doctor every week. Then on our schedualed appointments we would explain what happened to our doctor and he would agree that we were right. Not only has this book calmed my fears about being pregant but my husbands. The book can be started or stopped at any part. It was good to read both sides of breast feeding to bottle, vaginal delivery to c-section, ect. Getting both sides of the story allowed me to make the best choice for me and my baby.