Product Spotlight: Pregnancy Books/apps

inthewoods23 · December 2021

We're a little behind on our product spotlights. Whoops!

Share you favorite pregnancy books and apps!

LJMoon6 · December 2021

I think we talked about apps already. I have Ovia and Pregnancy+. Mostly to keep track of how far along I am, and I like to read the fun facts about the babies development.
As far as books, I just rented a bunch from the library. I don't remember if I actually made it all the way through any of them. But I do remember the clinic giving out pamphlets and booklets at nearly every appointment.
The one book I did read most of was The Happiest Baby on the Block.

bumblebee0210 · December 2021

I highly recommend Expecting Better, by Emily Oster. It's a very research-grounded take on all of the actual decision-points of pregnancy. It doesn't have like "this week baby's X is developing"-- for that I recommend The Mayo Clinic Guide--but it's super helpful for like "should I do X or Y, and why?"

inthewoods23 · December 2021

@bumblebee0210 maybe it's totally not my place to say this as a FTM as I haven't read a single baby book, but based on the title, doesn't Expecting Better kind of "discredit" some of what is written in the What to Expect When You're Expecting book?

Or am I confusing that with a different book. Maybe one TTC related 🤷‍♀️

feather_heather · December 2021

I agree that Expecting Better and Cribsheet by Emily Oster were great!

Baby Bargains by Denise and Alan Fields was a really great resource as a FTM trying to pick out baby gear.

The Bump and What to Expect are the two apps I use while pregnant.

tsh2021 · December 2021

I read Expecting Better as well and loved it.

I use the Bump, Ovia, and (just downloaded this week) BabyCenter. No offense to anyone on the other two apps, but I like the community here better. I feel like it’s less judgmental. I mostly use the other two for fun baby facts and the 3D weekly baby images.

bumblebee0210 · December 2021

@inthewoods23. Yes-- I think "Expecting Better" is definitely a play on the "what to expect". I think the issue with the standard books is that they err *super* hard on the side of caution, almost to the point of silliness. Like they will say "studies show that having more than 5 cups of coffee per day is correlated with miscarriage so probably just avoid all caffeine for your whole pregnancy!" And it's like wait but isn't that a lot of coffee? And isn't miscarriage only relevant in the beginning? Or they'll just say like "don't eat sushi" with no explanation. The truth is actually you can just mostly live your life while pregnant, and I think a lot of people get really wrapped up in the "rules", and they can be very stressful (this is not unrelated to our many discussions in TTGP about "all the things"). Anyway, Expecting Better actually goes through like, why they say you can't eat sushi (spoiler: you can, my doctor said she thinks that prohibition is mostly just white people thinking eating raw fish is weird), but also why they say not to smoke (spoiler: actually very bad!).

I have a whole rant about how people are bad at risk assessment, and if you actually want to protect your baby from harm while pregnant, the most important thing you can do is always wear your seatbelt and drive under the speed limit. Forget lunch meats. But that's a topic for another day...

inthewoods23 · December 2021

@bumblebee0210 that sounds similar to their reasoning for why you should avoid retinol or something.... Ingesting it orally has been found to be bad so they're assuming the same when applied topically in a skincare product it will be too but there aren't any good studies about it!

My friend and I were talking about lunch meats the other day because it was 3 hours after having a sub sandwich at work before I was like "whoops I just had lunch meat" haha. She has a friend that couldn't eat anything but Jimmy John's in her 1st tri because it was the only thing she could keep down. And that friend has a perfectly healthy 8 year old so the risks are just risks. They're not a definite means to a bad outcome.

I've already had herbal teas a few times in early pregnancy because I really wasn't thinking about it and that's supposedly bad. Which I think just means there are no good studies showing that's okay.

And think too - how many women go through pregnancy not even knowing their pregnant and end up with healthy babies? You can do all the right things or wrong things and end up with a good or bad outcome. There's only a few true hard and fast rules right?

moreamoozzarella · December 2021

inthewoods23 said:

I've already had herbal teas a few times in early pregnancy because I really wasn't thinking about it and that's supposedly bad. Which I think just means there are no good studies showing that's okay.

The tea thing drives me crazy. "Don't drink herbal tea because some herbs may be dangerous to the baby". Totally correct, but there are very few! You can do a google search and figure out if the herbs in your specific sleepy time tea are going to do anything wrong. Let me enjoy my freaking tea.

inthewoods23 · December 2021

@moreamoozzarella most of mine seem to be just fruity teas. But I guess I better check what else is in it since they do tend to have hibiscus which I know is on the no list. I'll have to spend some time making that list of no no ingredients and then compare when I finally have the chance.

bumblebee0210 · December 2021

@inthewoods23. Exactly on retinol, though I still avoid it because oral retinoids are *truly* terrible-- like you will get horrible birth defects for sure (relative, to say, caffeine where we are talking about like an 11% chance of miscarriage instead of 10% or something). And topical retinol is pretty easy to avoid.

But this is exactly the other issue that is infuriating-- all risks are treated the same in terms of levels. If you take accutane, it's bad enough for the fetus that most women TFMR. If you take ibuprofen, it's like, eh, probably nothing will happen. But most books or pamphlets will just say "don't take ibuprofen, don't take accutane" and not really tell you that one is WAY WORSE than the other. Same with like, fish or smoking. Mercury is not great, you should try to avoid it. But tobacco is *terrible*. You should try harder to avoid it.

The other hard part is like you said "so and so smoked her whole pregnancy and her kid won a nobel prize". All of this stuff is about risk. I like to think of it like saying "My friend rode his motorcycle without a helmet and was fine". Like, yeah, most of the time you will be. But the helmet is still protective an average over time (this is the covid vaccine/mask metaphor I use a lot).

Anyway-- I think Expecting Better does a great job parsing all of this stuff and helping you to focus on what might actually make a difference in your pregnancy.

gharmon412 · February 2022

With my first pregnancy I read The Impatient Woman's Guide to Getting Pregnant, which really helped with the whole conception process. Then during my pregnancy: Expecting Better. Expecting Better was brilliant for easing pregnancy anxiety through knowledge. Bringing Up Bebe has been pretty great for post-birth, if for nothing else than the concept of "the pause." Another post-birth book that's really helped was the Wonder Weeks- it helped us to gain a good understanding of why she would suddenly become super fussy. I also integrate a bunch of professional pediatric accounts into my Instagram scrolling- car seat, sleep, feeding, OT, speech, Montessori, etc for daily tips during my social scrolling. I've learned a lot from them!

pdxav8rx · February 2022

I read Bringing Up Bèbè as well and loved it (though her take on men being helpless is a bit antiquated). My big takeaway whilst pregnant is being mindful of the quality and amount of food I eat and to get plenty of exercise. We are NOT “eating for two” here, folks…

zinnia19 · February 2022

Does anyone have a good resource for information about hypnobirthing? I'm interested in learning more, but when I looked up hypnobabies I saw that it is a class with a fee. I'm looking more for a book or ideally a podcast/a way to listen to hypnobirthing techniques. Not sure I'm ready to spend a lot of money on it, am just curious at this point.

inthewoods23 · February 2022

@zinnia19 I did a quick google search and it looks like there's a whole bunch of hypnobirthing podcasts. I might just add some of these to my own podcast list.

This reminds me that I need to look at those online courses that are free through the medical group. I'm so behind on all this stuff gah!

Product Spotlight: Pregnancy Books/apps

Re: Product Spotlight: Pregnancy Books/apps

Choose Another Board

Search Boards