The Expectant Parents' Companion: Simplifying What to Do, Buy, or Borrow for an Easy Life With Baby Review

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(More customer reviews)I have never written a review on Amazon before, but this book compelled me to do so because I have found it so helpful. While I agree with the reviewer who said the book is biased (Huggins' preferences for breastfeeding, natural birth, etc. come out loud and clear), it is still an incredibly useful resource for someone like me--a first-time mom who knows absolutely nothing! I have no younger siblings, rarely babysat, and just generally have not spent much time around infants, so I'm going into parenthood with a totally blank slate. For this reason, I've been looking for someone or something that could tell me what is necessary to do and buy and what is not. (Prior to reading it, I couldn't have told you what a "layette" or a "bumper" was, and I certainly would not have known what to do with a "nasal aspirator.") Registering for my baby shower made me realize how saturated the market is with all kinds of gadgets that scream "buy me!" but personally, I can't afford to buy out the baby section at Target. And I'm not so hypnotized by marketing that I believe I need it all. Huggins breaks down not only what products are necessary for your baby's care, but also what might be better to borrow than to buy. She also offers suggestions for making or doing things yourself instead of paying for them (breast pads, for instance, cut out of diapers)--welcome advice for anyone on a budget! The book is recent enough (2006) that its information on actual products, name brands, etc. is totally up-to-date, a fact I also appreciated. I highly recommend this book for sorting through all the overwhelming purchasing and planning decisions, big and small, you will face as you prepare for parenthood.

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This is the ultimate, all-around baby guide. Not only does it help you navigate the dizzying array of baby products or gear, it also helps you get ready for baby in numerous ways, from preparing for birth, to feeding your newborn, to sleeping arrangements, and to making your home safe for baby. Most other baby-gear guides make you think you need to build on an extra room in your house to accommodate all the necessary items. However, Kathleen Huggins' years of experience with moms and newborns have taught her what you'll need, what you'll want, and what you can definitely do without.

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Healthy Child Healthy World: Creating a Cleaner, Greener, Safer Home Review

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(More customer reviews)I read this book and liked quite a bit, but felt it wasn't really geared towards the every day person. I have a decent income, yet it overwhelmed me on it's push to buy, buy, buy to keep my family safe. It wasn't until I was almost finished that I realized his Hollywood connection, but it had seemed incredulous up to that point how he'd attracted so many celebrities as just a non-profit green guy.
All that namedropping made it harder to see the book as aimed at everyday people (I wanted to see regular people talking about their changes and making it work, not people with millions to work with). Several of the shops mentioned in the resources section for places to buy from "just happened" to be owned by celebrities. A lot of the items mentioned as critical were really advertorial for specific brands and of course very expensive. There were a few homemade recipes & ideas, but just as many pushes for things that are a financial stretch for many people. A lot of cheap greener living items were barely touched on. Cloth diapers were a tiny paragraph and not given much kudos yet that is a huge item that is feasible for any income level. Only 1 of the 4 diaper brands listed in the resources was cloth.
The intention was there, but IMO there are other books by regular people that are more inspiring, more realistic in what you're able to do time-wise and financially and still be as green and safe as you can.

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Learn how to Create a Cleaner, Greener, Safer Home - from Christopher Gavigan and the trusted experts at Healthy Child Healthy World. Healthy Child Healthy World is the essential guide for parents! All parents want a happy and healthy child in a safe home, but where do they start?It starts with the small steps to creating a healthier, less toxic, and more environmentally sound home - and this is the definitive book to get you there. Unfortunately, tens of millions of Americans, overwhelmingly children, now face chronic disease and illnesses including cancer, autism, asthma, allergies, birth defects, ADD/ADHD, obesity/diabetes, and learning and developmental disabilities. The number gets higher each year and more parents ask WHY? Scientific evidence increasingly finds chemicals in everyday products like cleaning supplies, beauty care and cosmetics, home furnishings, plastics, food, and even toys that are contributors to these ailments. The good news is that you can something to protect your children with a few simple changes! Inside, you'll find practical, inexpensive, and easy lifestyle advice for every stage of parenting including: *Advice on preparing a nontoxic nursery for a new baby *What every expectant mom needs to do to have a safer pregnancy *Clarifying which plastics and baby products to avoid and the healthier solutions *Tips to take to the grocery store, including the most and least pesticide-laden fruits and vegetables and the best healthy kid-approved snacks *Which beauty care / cosmetic products pose the biggest risk to health *The best recipes for healthy snacks, low-cost and safe homemade cleaners, and non-toxic art supplies *How to easily minimize allergens, dust, and lead *A greener garden, yard, and outdoor spaces *Tips to keep your pets healthy, and the unwanted pests out naturally *Renovation ideas, naturally fresher indoor air, and safer sleeping options, *An 27 page extensive shopper's guide to most trusted and best products every home needs Inside is also packed with over 40 featured contributions from renowned doctors, environmental scientists, and public-health experts like Dr. Harvey Karp, Dr Philip Landrigan, and William McDonough, as well as many celebrity parents like Gwyneth Paltrow, Tobey Maguire, Sheryl Crow, Erin Brockovich and Tom Hanks.A special featured contribution from First Lady Michelle Obama on her best ways of coping with her daughter's asthma.

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Your Non-Toxic Pregnancy Review

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(More customer reviews)I bought this book while traveling in the North of Ireland, so I expected it to be a European based book. Indeed it is, however, the author was kind enough to do some American research, as well, so it is definitely usable (and recommended) for Americans.
My first "chemical-free" pregnancy book was The Complete Organic Pregnancy by Deidre Dolan and Alexandra Zissu, and while I did enjoy it, I found it lacking in many areas (such as recommendations and resources for finding less toxic products). Because of this, I was pleasantly surprised when I picked up a copy of Your Non-Toxic Pregnancy. Not only does it back up its claims with sound research (from many different worldwide-respected organizations), but it gives many different suggestions for how to live more organically.
The book is organized well and filled with attractive photos of glowing pregnant mamas-to-be. The information is consise. The suggestions are do-able.
The author devotes a whole section to toxins in beauty products, and includes recipes for homemade alternatives that I found especially interesting and helpful. Another section describes the dangers in modern household cleaning products, and gives a list of eco-friendly options. And these subjects are just the beginning.
I really cannot give enough praise to how well this book is put together. There are many books out there screaming the dangers of many of our modern-day luxuries, but do absolutely nothing to help us find better, safer, and more eco-friendly ways of living. This book has an alternative for every not-so-safe product out there. Many of the alternatives are UK products, but almost all can be ordered online.
As a quick side note, I've noticed many reviews for this book (on other sites) and reviews for The Complete Organic Pregnancy state that the authors are trying to scare you into doing impossible things. I say for a fact that none of these changes are impossible to make. Yes, the information is scary, but this does not mean it is fear culture-based. Someone needs to put this information out there, and I find it unwise and even immature to criticize those few who are brave enough to do it. /rant

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Every expectant mother wants to provide a safe and protective environment for her unborn baby, but there are hidden hazards in almost everything we use or ingest, such as arsenic in eyeshadow and hormones in chicken. Women aged 20–45 are especially vulnerable to toxic substances and their effects, and even more so when they are pregnant. Yet it is often hard to choose the right products given manufacturers' often misleading claims and the amount of technical knowledge required to "translate" the components of many items. This guidemakes clear the substances found in common household, food, and office items and reveals the practices that can be damaging to both baby and mother. It provides a guide to safe commercial alternatives as well as quick-and-easy recipes to create natural preparations. It is the ultimate guide to ensuring that home, workspace, leisure-time activities, food, skin care, and cosmetics remain hazard- and stress-free.

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Homeopathy for Pregnancy, Birth, and Your Baby's First Year Review

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(More customer reviews)Not only does this book give you very specific information on using homeopathic remedies, it focuses on emotional as well as physical symptoms (which is essential to homeopathy). The sections on labor and post-partum are some of the most informative I've read in my pregnancy. Detailed, honest, and non-judgmental, the book covers the myriad and often complicated emotions mothers may encounter during pregnancy and labor, and offers ways to deal with these issues naturally (often with simple practices like taking a bath). This book covers, in detail, several birth complications, and ways the mother can deal with these during labor. This is all done with very easy to read and matter of fact language. No foofy new-age stuff here. I wish every pregnant woman in the world could have the information contained in this book. If you are considering it, BUY IT NOW!

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No period in a woman's life is as filled with special concerns as pregnancy and new motherhood. Among the many discomforts and ailments treatable with the homeopathic remedies explained in this book are:For the mother: anemia, back pain, breastfeeding problems, constipation, exhaustion, hemorrhoids, insomnia, morning sickness, post-partum depression, sinusitis, varicose veins, yeast infectionsFor the baby: breathing difficulties, chicken pox, constipation, cough, diaper rash, diarrhea, ear infection, hiccups, mumps, sleep problems, teething pains, vomitingIn Homeopathy for Pregnancy, Birth, and Your Baby's First Year, practicing homeopath, Mirando Castro introduces readers to the many safe, effective, inexpensive, and nonmedical remedies that homeopathy has to offer women in this very important period.With reassuring, easy-to-read text, the book explains the principles of homeopathy and tells readers how to select the remedies that correlate to hundreds of common symptoms of physical and emotional distress.The book also offers natural ways to make labor and birth as relaxed as possible, using homeopathic methods.Complete with case histories, materia medica, and supportive and helpful tips throughout, this guidebook offers a wealth of natural-health information every expentant mother should consider.

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The Christian Mama's Guide to Having a Baby: Everything You Need to Know to Survive (and Love) Your Pregnancy Review

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(More customer reviews)You've seen them, those chatty `girlfriends-guide-to-having-a-baby' type books. But you've wondered - are these books going to be unnecessarily crude? Raunchy? Worse? Well, Erin MacPherson has written a similarly light-hearted guide to pregnancy entitled The Christian Mama's Guide to Having a Baby.
Laugh-out-loud funny, MacPherson tackles the nitty-gritties of pregnancy in chronological order while providing the much-needed levity every pregnant mama needs to hang in there! Bonus sections include thoughts and advice to husbands from husbands who've been there (I loved this part!) Like many Guideposts titles, the faith emphasis isn't particularly strong in this title, but the author does acknowledge the difficulties pregnant moms face maintaining a godly attitude. She often directs moms towards their Creator as a source of support during the difficulties pregnancy can bring.
I enjoyed the fact that MacPherson does attempt to include some coverage of alternative caregivers such as midwives, birthing locations such as birth centers etc. although she hasn't personally experienced them. Having given birth at home four times I found her take on the medical aspects of pre-natal care and delivery to be fairly traditional and at times unfairly skewed in favor of medicated hospital births (she warns about the risks of preventable injuries that have occurred in home births, but what of all the common, preventable negative outcomes so common in hospital births?)
I'll admit, I'm a rabid natural-birther, so it's hard to please me on that front; I do suggest moms-to-be do some intensive research on the consequences and risks of common interventions (such as epidurals) before plunging into one. Complications following an epidural can too often lead to a c-section. Whew, okay, rant over! In all honesty, the author does a better job of presenting alternatives than most do.
That being said; there's few other times in your life that you'll need to be able to laugh at yourself than when you are pregnant. Not only does MacPherson provide those much-needed chuckles, but she also provides REALISTIC advice about how much baby gear you should actually buy, some tips on avoiding nausea (though she freely admits it may be likely that you CAN'T), and lots of other down-to-earth advice from the trenches.

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Filled with helpful tips, amusing anecdotes, and encouraging advice, here's one Christian mama's take on everything pregnancy -- from stretch marks to weight gain to figuring out how to rely on Christ through all of the uncertainty and joy of the next nine months.Pregnant women may discover that while they are thrilled about the baby, pregnancy can be another thing entirely. Instead of glowing they're glistening. There's morning sickness. And suddenly a favorite pair of jeans no longer fits. Erin MacPherson has created a comprehensive guide that's packed with information that every newly pregnant Christian mama needs including exercising while pregnant, a detailed guide to each trimester (including sleep, doctor check-ups, pregnancy sex), how to use your Bible as your pregnancy resource, and how to use this time of waiting to really draw closer to God through prayer.Filled with helpful tips (how do you quell that not-just-in-the-morning sickness?), humorous accounts (doesn't everyone crave peanut-butter-and-olive sandwiches?), and supportive spiritual advice (what does a godly pregnancy attitude actually look like anyway?). The Christian Mama's Guide to Having a Baby has the advice a mama-to-be wants to hear. Erin MacPherson assures, 'at the end of nine months, you really will be glowing.'

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Expecting 411: Clear Answers & Smart Advice for Your Pregnancy Review

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(More customer reviews)I have been a practicing obstetrician for 16 years. I try to read the pregnancy information books as they come out so I know which ones to recommend to my patients. I found this book to be accurate and easy to read; the advice is sound and well supported by the medical literature. I have purchased a few for my waiting room and I will definitely be recommending it to my patients.

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Congratulations! You're pregnant! Now, where do you turn to for the best advice? What if you could bottle the wisdom of all those women who came before you—and combine it with the solid medical advice from a renowned Beverly Hills' OB/GYN and nationally known pediatrician? Expecting 411 is the answer: smart, up-to-date and refreshingly free of paranoia, this is the book you'll turn to for quick answers to your most pressing questions.

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Raising Baby Green: The Earth-Friendly Guide to Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Baby Care Review

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(More customer reviews)Raising Baby Green was easy and quick to read and is a book I will keep around simply for the fact that Dr. Greene has put together an impressive resource guide of websites where one can find lots of information on greening one's life and home. I'm sure this book will be a great reference in the future when I'm looking to buy something, that being said, I had two problems with this book.
First, after about the second chapter this book starts to read like an advertisement to buy buy buy! For example, there is repeated references to bringing you own organic cotton sheets to wherever you give birth and using them to replace the sheets at the hospital/birthing center. Now call me pragmatic, but 300 count organic cotton sheets cost between $125-$175 for my bed, thus, these are not the ideal sheets TO GIVE BIRTH ON. They will be ruined and I know when I'm expecting a baby I don't generally have $175 dollars to throw away. Nor does he address the impracticality of packing home sheets covered in birth mess for washing.
While Dr. Green does repeatedly say you can do as little or as much greening as you like in your home, he really does seem to push for more. There comes a point when ripping up your current hardwoods floors which are perfectly good to put down new floors made from cork which is a renewable resource stops being green. If you gut your entire house to "remodel green" the question becomes, are you really being green? Or are you just buying into the latest fad and wasting valuable, usable resources?
This green baby guide seems to have bought into our consumer culture hook, line and sinker, which is the reason I was going to give it 4 stars, but I dropped that down to 3 stars when I ran into my second problem with this book: Mis-information.
On page 248 there is a section titled "How to Drive Green." Two of the suggestions given are changing your air filter (which he says will save you $130 in fuel economy) and filling your tank at night. Now if you google "10 gas saving myths" you will find several articles about, well, gas saving myths and both of these are on there. Neither filling up at night nor changing your air filter really increase you fuel economy.
Green goes on further to say that filling up at night, "decreases evaporation during pumping, so anything that escapes won't be cooked in to the ozone." So, those fumes I see/smell when I pump gas at night don't go into the ozone? Because it's night? So . . .where do they go? To the pub for a beer?
If Greene has mis-information about fuel economy in his book that can be disputed by a simple google search, it makes me wonder what else he got wrong.

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In this illustrated and easy-to-use guide, noted pediatrician Dr. Alan Greene, a leading voice of the green baby movement, advises parents how to make healthy green choices for pregnancy, childbirth, and baby care—from feeding your baby the best food available to using medicines wisely. Consumer advocate Jeanette Pavini includes information for making smart choices and applying green principles to a whole new universe of products from zero-VOC paints for the nursery, to pure and gentle lotions for baby's delicate skin, to the eco-friendly diapers now in the marketplace, as well as specific recommendations for hundreds of other products.

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