I laughed, I cried, I absolutely loved this book. Vincent lovingly recounts
her stories from her years working as a midwife -- everything from the
happy to the sad to the miraculous to the bittersweet. It's also probably
one of the better birth preparation books I've read. Reading all these
stories of women just like me who gave birth naturally made it sink in
on some subconscious level that I really am capable of doing this.
I count this book among the top five books I have ever read. I loved
it. Meredith Small, at the forefront of the new field of ethnopediatrics,
artfully walks the reader through the evolution of childbirth explores
how women have been raising babies for thousands of years. She looks at
babies' and parents' needs based on what humans have evolved to need and
expect -- and somehow makes this all a fascinating, easy read. Anyone
with even a passing interest in anthropology or human history should stop
what they're doing right now and go get this book.
I think new parents are required by law to have this book, so go ahead
and buy it. I really enjoyed reading this while pregnant; Karp's theory
about the missing "fourth trimester" and the info he provides
about the various causes of colic are great. And, of course, knowledge
of the "5 S's" for soothing your baby is a must for new parents.
I subtracted a half star because I was surprised that there were many,
many times that my crying baby couldn't have cared less about my recreating
the womb through swaddling and rocking, but overall I found Karp's suggestions
to be helpful and effective.
This book helped calm my paranoia about my baby's development probably
more than any other book. I found Vanderijt and Plooij's descriptions
of the type of behavior you can expect at each week to be really accurate.
Often when I was worried because my son was cranky and out of sorts for
a few days I'd pick up this book and find, to my great relief, that that
sort of behavior was expected for his age. My only complaint is that they
don't help you translate weeks into months, so once my son was a few months
old I had to get out my calendar and manually add up how many weeks old
he was.
