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The Pregnancy Journal, Revised Edition: A Day-to-Day Guide to a Healthy and Happy Pregnancy
Since its publication in 1996, this definitive journal for expectant families has sold over a million copies. Author A. Christine Harris brings a revised and thoroughly updated edition to today s parents-to-be. Still featuring daily entries, a personalized timeline, and pregnancy glossary, the revised edition provides a clearer picture of the baby's in-utero development and the latest advice about giving a growing baby every advantage prior to birth.
206 pages, Spiral-bound
First published August 1, 1996
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179 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews
November 8, 2007
This is a really good book. I just had a hard time keeping up with it. The format is a journal and each entry is a day in your pregnancy. There are tons of facts about fetal development, tips for dealing with pregnancy symptoms, and ideas to prepare for the baby's arrival. It took me until day 100 or so to calculate where I was in my pregnancy. This is because the day is based on the due date and I had been given two different due dates: one by my midwife and one by the sonographer. After I finally settled on a date, I had a hard time remembering to read the book each day! Instead, I would look at the book every ten days or so and then have to catch up. I am usually a very organized person, but during my pregnancy I was too tired to care about small details like this. I think the book would be great for someone more disciplined and/or less forgetful. I passed this book onto a friend and she really loved it as did one of my cousins, so I do recommend it.
July 29, 2007
This journal is excellent. A friend recommended it. It tells you what is happening day by day inside you. It is very descriptive and tells you about the baby's development. It can be a little cheesy at times, but I am finding most pregnancy books are. I am currently working through it since I am only 2 months pregnant, but I skimmed through the rest and it is really great. There is room for you to journal on almost evey page and it will be a cool keepsake when done. I highly recommend it. Although the day by day stuff is probably just an estimate. I don't think anyone in the medical profession has pinpointed EXACTLY what happens each day in the womb. It is more estimated weekly or monthly so I think the author takes some liberties there. BUT it is still a cool book.
November 8, 2007
I loved this! It had info about the baby's development on a daily basis--which was great for an info-phile like me. And I used it as a journal, also. I wrote little things in it, like 'threw up today' or 'stretching pains' or names I was liking at the time. It was really neat to go thru pregnancy again and compare notes on a day-to-day basis. Being the person I am, I used a blue pen for my first pg and a red for my 2nd. LOL
April 30, 2008
Best book thus far I have for my pregnancy. Given to me by one of my best friends. You start from the back and number the expected due date and then read day by day about growth of your baby and what's happening to mom. Tips for parents, birth in other cultures...etc
Recommended as a must have for any pregnant woman, and great to share with the daddy!
Not a book that you can swap because you actually write in it.
Recommended as a must have for any pregnant woman, and great to share with the daddy!
Not a book that you can swap because you actually write in it.
April 4, 2009
The scientific detail in this book is much higher than in many others I've read... but at the same time, it had me really freaked out about what could go wrong on a daily basis during the first trimester. Now that I'm more than halfway done with *this* pleasure cruise, it's a fun set of factoids.
June 7, 2010
This was just ok. It goes day by day, and that was hard to keep up with for me. A lot of the information is redundant, verbage is just plain goofy, and the was they calculate what week you are in is strange. We did learn from it, but it wasn't my favorite.
December 10, 2013
This is a sweet book and I liked that it had little tidbits of fun facts throughout. The problem was that I found quite a bit of inaccurate information. I'm a nurse and doula so these mess ups really stood out to me and I just couldn't get past them.
November 24, 2008
I loved using this when I was pregnant....it was very easy to use and I like that I have a journal of my time being pregnant now.
August 26, 2020
I recently purchased this book for my son and daughter-in-law who are expecting their first baby. It was highly recommended to me, and I'm so glad i chose this book. There are hundreds of pregnancy books out there, and I'm sure all of them are good in many aspects, but this book is wonderful. It tells in plain and concise words how the baby is growing every day. Each day is detailed as to what is happening to the baby and to the mother's body, which is very informative to new parents. Divided into Lunar months, you can read the details, and enter your own statistics and thoughts as the pregnancy progresses. There are also many helpful sections on diet, getting enough rest, exercise, and general prep for the big day. I highly recommend this book to anyone needing a gift or to new parents.
September 7, 2017
I found this book incredibly helpful and relevant. Each day I was able to learn more about my little one as she grew and progressed in the womb. I would find that I would just begin to develop a new feeling or symptom and then I would read this book, and it would explain exactly what was happening and why. I also liked the little entry options and I am sure I will enjoy going back and reading through this as my little one gets older.
December 30, 2018
I received this journal as a gift, and I used it with all of my pregnancies. It set a positive tone for each week my growing baby was developing, and it offered me an opportunity to reflect on what I was experiencing and feeling in that moment.
May 15, 2015
Overall, this journal fit the bill. I wanted something that would give me little bits of information each day about pregnancy, my body, optimal eating choices, etc, and space to write a few lines about what we were up to, how appointments went, and what the baby was up to each day. This journal delivers!
I do have some critiques, however:
--t's somewhat repetitive, sometimes even repeating information every other day. A good editor would take care of this.
--It's generally far too strict in harping on women to eat correctly. Unless I'm unlike most women, I needed those messages in order to set a good routine in the first trimester, and possibly some reminders/encouragement every few weeks, but it seems like almost every day this journal tells me I could be doing better. It doesn't feel healthy to be forced to obsess like that, especially for those women that might have a history of eating disorders, and since pregnancy is such a high-anxiety time anyway. Chill out.
--The Weeks are off! If you input your due date at the back and calculate backwards, the weeks are off by at least a full week, by comparison to what my doctor's schedule says (along with every other online due date calculator and website). This needs to be fixed in the next edition, pronto!! Super annoying.
--It asks for you to input your weight and belly circumference WAY too frequently. Again, not a good book in this way for those women that have a history of obsessing over weight. These prompts, to me, seem appropriate every 3 weeks or so. Instead, the book often asks us to input this about every 4 DAYS.
--The space given for journaling could be better laid out. Some days you get almost no room to write anything, some weeks there are a few lines, and at the end of every month there's a full blank page. This is a hard balance to strike, but I would have appreciated a bit more room on a daily basis, but deleting the full-page blank spaces.
Even with these critiques, I will be ordering this author's "baby's first year" journal. An easy way to mark milestones and keep abreast of developments in the little guy, especially if you like routine.
I do have some critiques, however:
--t's somewhat repetitive, sometimes even repeating information every other day. A good editor would take care of this.
--It's generally far too strict in harping on women to eat correctly. Unless I'm unlike most women, I needed those messages in order to set a good routine in the first trimester, and possibly some reminders/encouragement every few weeks, but it seems like almost every day this journal tells me I could be doing better. It doesn't feel healthy to be forced to obsess like that, especially for those women that might have a history of eating disorders, and since pregnancy is such a high-anxiety time anyway. Chill out.
--The Weeks are off! If you input your due date at the back and calculate backwards, the weeks are off by at least a full week, by comparison to what my doctor's schedule says (along with every other online due date calculator and website). This needs to be fixed in the next edition, pronto!! Super annoying.
--It asks for you to input your weight and belly circumference WAY too frequently. Again, not a good book in this way for those women that have a history of obsessing over weight. These prompts, to me, seem appropriate every 3 weeks or so. Instead, the book often asks us to input this about every 4 DAYS.
--The space given for journaling could be better laid out. Some days you get almost no room to write anything, some weeks there are a few lines, and at the end of every month there's a full blank page. This is a hard balance to strike, but I would have appreciated a bit more room on a daily basis, but deleting the full-page blank spaces.
Even with these critiques, I will be ordering this author's "baby's first year" journal. An easy way to mark milestones and keep abreast of developments in the little guy, especially if you like routine.
July 25, 2009
Early on, when I first got a copy of this journal I was so excited about the idea of keeping a journal of notes and thoughts through out my entire pregnancy. Honestly, this specific journal was not the best choice for me. The places to actually "journal" are sporatic at best and usually at pages and sections when I just feel like I have nothing to write. Then when I have many thoughts to write, there are no journal lines. It was a bit irritating. The other thing that was odd was the way that you personalize the dates of the journal. Their counting system was off from every other system I have heard of, and there are instructions, but they do not quite add up to what they say either. Next time around, I'm going to look more specifically for a journal to journal in. This I would not really have titled a journal, but a day by day guide to what's going on with you and your baby during pregnancy. The facts especially the cultural anthropological world details are really neat. I also enjoyed hearing about measurement averages and changes from an average day to day. But overall, I cannot really recommend this as being my cup of tea.
April 10, 2009
I have not been doing the journal part of the book, I recieved it as a gift and I was already 15 weeks along so it was not worth me starting to document what I was was happening.
I like this book because you can look at it every day or every week and it tells you fun facts about other cultures, has great quotes and the bottom of every page and even gives parenting tips through out... it is the only book I have seen that actually tells you anything about what you should do once the baby is born. Usually you have to get a whole seperate book for that.
I like this book because you can look at it every day or every week and it tells you fun facts about other cultures, has great quotes and the bottom of every page and even gives parenting tips through out... it is the only book I have seen that actually tells you anything about what you should do once the baby is born. Usually you have to get a whole seperate book for that.
July 10, 2010
This journal has day by day week by week updates on baby and hints for mom to be as well as spaces for waist size and weight. It seemed like a great idea at first, but I've been too tired to update or read it much, which is not it's fault. Why I gave it 3 stars is that ideally it would be nice to have some blank pages for art and possibly some pages with suggestions for photos (moms belly progress, ultrasound pictures, etc.). It's mostly just a lot of writing with a few little sketches thrown in.
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September 15, 2012My sister-in-law sent me this daily journal and I love reading the day-to-day updates on the baby's development. I also love the "childbirth in other cultures" and "childbirth then and now" segments- great trivia. The nutrition information gets somewhat repetitive but I like the daily aspect of the book and having a place to jot down notes on how I'm feeling and when we have appointments, etc. There really aren't enough lines available to call it a true "journal" but I just write in the blank spaces and I have another journal for my expanded thoughts.
September 11, 2010
This is my favorite thing to get through pg. My sister gave it to me when I was pg with my first and it was the first thing I bought when I found out I was pg with my second!
There is something for everyday and you feel more a part of the process than with the books that you only have a chapter per month. Buy it along with a measuring tape for anyone! Then you can get them Baby's First Year Journal by the same author when the baby arrives!
There is something for everyday and you feel more a part of the process than with the books that you only have a chapter per month. Buy it along with a measuring tape for anyone! Then you can get them Baby's First Year Journal by the same author when the baby arrives!
December 5, 2010
This book was the single most helpful thing I read or used during my pregnancy, because it contextualized what I was feeling with the developmental stage of my growing fetus and the hormonal changes our bodies were experiencing. Having a dedicated place to jot down my symptoms and feelings was also very helpful, both on a personal level and as a reference for visits with my doula & obstetrician. Highly recommended!
August 11, 2011
My sister gave me this journal when she first found out I was pregnant. It's more then just a journal. It's a day by day guide to being pregnant. Each week you can fill out your weight, waist size, mood, energy, appetite, baby movements, notes, anything you would love to remember on your journey to motherhood. It had great facts and some great info to help you along. Best of all it's a great reminder for years to come of your pregnancy. Glad I was given this book.
December 22, 2011
I bought this book in 2003 when I was pregnant with my first. My husband and I loved reading it everyday to see what our baby was doing. I feel like it really helped us to connect with him. We have read bits and pieces with each of our other 3 pregnancies, but my favorite parts are in the early months when things are happening everyday, so we usually forget to read after a few months. It's a wonderful book though, I love it!
March 21, 2009
I LOVE this book! Tells you on a day to day basis what is going on with the baby (i.e. what parts are growing, what it might need more of, ect.) and it is simple and easy. I don't actually write in the journal, just use the day to day excerpts. It is very specific and it makes me closer in tune with my baby. I HIGHLY recommend.
April 22, 2011
A colleague gifted this book to me. I love that it has daily notes about what Baby is doing, what you might be doing, and also information about pregnancy and childbirth in other eras and around the world. There are small spaces to jot down notes, but not so much that doing my journal every night feels like homework. I'm a big fan!
August 16, 2011
Awesome journal. Lots of good info and kind of fun to read a short paragraph about what's going on each day. I also loved then info about pregnancy in other cultures. My only complain is I wish there were a couple of lines for entries each day. I just wrote at the bottom of the page instead but would be nice if there was space for notes when I wanted rather than once or twice a week.
August 2, 2009
This book is jam packed with information about the mom's body and the baby's development throughout pregnancy. It's not a traditional journal but does have weekly and monthly spaces for adding your own notes.
May 6, 2009
It's really fun to learn what's happening with the little peanut day by day. Although, I never figured out why my journal was off by a whole week. I went back over it many times and it was still off. Oh well.
December 1, 2010
I'm loving seeing the day to day of what's going on inside my tummy. I will say though that babycenter.com provides a very similar email in my inbox each week...if I had to do over I might save the $$ on this one...
January 17, 2011
I really liked this little pregnany journal and how it followed the pregnany day by day with great info for the begining of each month of pregnancy. Has a place for you to chart your waist size and weight through out book and pregnancy. really great~
December 31, 2013
Nice read, especially during early pregnancy. Lots of science in here, which I found interesting. I enjoyed this one much better than the "What to expect..." book (which I chucked across the room on at least one occasion!)
January 10, 2008
Highly recommend this book for anyone who is expecting! The day by day accounts of what your body is doing is amazing!!
November 17, 2009
It had interesting little tidbits throughout the book and you could also keep a journal of your pregnancy (although I didn't use it for that).
Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews