What do you think?
Rate this book
The Simple Guide to Having a Baby: A Step-by-Step Illustrated Guide to Pregnancy & Childbirth
The Simple Guide to Having a Baby is written by the authors of the best-selling Pregnancy, Childbirth, and the Newborn . This book is a simple, just-the-facts guide to pregnancy and childbirth for expectant parents who want only the most important, down-to-earth how-to information on pregnancy, childbirth, and newborn care. The Simple Guide to Having a Baby addresses such concerns as how to stay healthy during pregnancy, how to handle labor pain and birth, and how to care for a new baby.
- GenresNonfictionReference
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
2 people are currently reading
227 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
March 17, 2017
I have started reading many pregnancy, childbirth and parenting books as my husband and I prepare to start trying in the near-ish future. So I was happy to receive an advanced reading copy of this book from the publisher. Like many pregnancy books, this book is broken down into chapters discussing various aspects of pregnancy and childbirth ranging from preparing for pregnancy to caring for your baby. Each chapter is about about 12 pages long, so is just giving you an overview of each topic. There are 11 chapters and they are as follows; Preparing for Pregnancy, Now That You're Pregnant, Health Care During Pregnancy, Staying Healthy during Pregnancy, Preparing for Birth, Having Your Baby: Labor and Birth, What About Pain During Labor?, Challenging Labors and Cesarean Birth, Home With Your New Baby, Feeding Your New Baby and Caring for Your New Baby. In the index, the chapters are further broken down into different topics so it is easy to look up specific information that you what to read about.
This book actually aligned with some of my views (Baby sleeping in a co-sleeper next to mom's bed, breastfeeding, babywearing, etc.) so I found that helpful. It isn't biased in one way or another as many books are. I lead a fairly natural lifestyle and plan to carry that on into pregnancy, childbirth and parenting and not every book I read goes along with such beliefs. The chapter on pain during labor doesn't say that you should use medication or that you shouldn't, it gives clear information about each option, which I thought was nice as well. I imagine that most women, even if they already have a birth plan, still want to read about all of their options, as birth plans don't always go as one would like. There are also a great deal of illustrations and diagrams throughout the book that I also found to be quite helpful.
Overall, I think this a good broad book about pregnancy and childbirth, it is not focused on one specific view of how one should behave during pregnancy and birth, but gives a variety of information about a variety of different topics.
This book actually aligned with some of my views (Baby sleeping in a co-sleeper next to mom's bed, breastfeeding, babywearing, etc.) so I found that helpful. It isn't biased in one way or another as many books are. I lead a fairly natural lifestyle and plan to carry that on into pregnancy, childbirth and parenting and not every book I read goes along with such beliefs. The chapter on pain during labor doesn't say that you should use medication or that you shouldn't, it gives clear information about each option, which I thought was nice as well. I imagine that most women, even if they already have a birth plan, still want to read about all of their options, as birth plans don't always go as one would like. There are also a great deal of illustrations and diagrams throughout the book that I also found to be quite helpful.
Overall, I think this a good broad book about pregnancy and childbirth, it is not focused on one specific view of how one should behave during pregnancy and birth, but gives a variety of information about a variety of different topics.
January 4, 2011
At first, I didn't like the book at all because i felt like they were putting it in such simple terms that i was almost considered stupid as a reader... but once my expectations adjusted, the book was fairly well done. There's some repetitiveness in it, but it made it easier for me to skim through, and the reminders were okay. A good book for those who easily get overwhelmed.
November 12, 2009
I read this book while I pregnant with my first child. It was a great guide for someone who doesn't want to use drugs during labour. Putting to use the advice I was able to deliver my first and second child without any drugs whatsoever.
October 6, 2009
I read this for my doula training. The beginning part really felt like it was too simplified, but as the book progressed, there was some good information in there.
June 15, 2018
So simple and straightforward. Each section is brief so it’s great if you only have lunch breaks or short periods to read. Easy to read and covers the basic facts other mothers assume you know.
August 14, 2016
Disclaimer: I received a free proof copy of this book from a LibraryThing giveaway in exchange for a review.
Since I'm pregnant with my first child, I've been leafing through many different pregnancy books to get an idea of what I'm in for. I was quite impressed with this book's fleshed-out cousin, Pregnancy, Childbirth, and the Newborn: The Complete Guide, for its depth of topics and no-nonsense advice and information. So I was eager to see what this book would be like - could they slim it down without watering it down? Yes, and they did it well.
This book is compact and yet covers everything I could think of asking about pregnancy. Without getting Pregnancy, Childbirth, and the Newborn: The Complete Guide from the library again, I'm not able to do a side-by-side comparison, but I can't think of any crucial information about pregnancy or childbirth that's been omitted from this volume. I seem to recall that its bigger cousin has chapters on issues such as circumcision for male infants and planning further children after the current one, but I think those were good candidates to be left out of this version.
I like the checklists strewn throughout the book, because it makes it easy to isolate information when you're leafing through the book. It has a useful table of contents, which is sorely missing in some other pregnancy manuals. I also like that it isn't a sugary sweet book, because many other pregnancy books are just too precious for me.
The only con for me was that the cross-references aren't complete in the proof copy. It would say, "For more information on this topic, see page XX," and I had no idea which page they actually meant. (There are no front matter pages, so it couldn't be page xx in the front matter.) I'm assuming that these cross-references will be accurate in the final version for sale.
Since I'm pregnant with my first child, I've been leafing through many different pregnancy books to get an idea of what I'm in for. I was quite impressed with this book's fleshed-out cousin, Pregnancy, Childbirth, and the Newborn: The Complete Guide, for its depth of topics and no-nonsense advice and information. So I was eager to see what this book would be like - could they slim it down without watering it down? Yes, and they did it well.
This book is compact and yet covers everything I could think of asking about pregnancy. Without getting Pregnancy, Childbirth, and the Newborn: The Complete Guide from the library again, I'm not able to do a side-by-side comparison, but I can't think of any crucial information about pregnancy or childbirth that's been omitted from this volume. I seem to recall that its bigger cousin has chapters on issues such as circumcision for male infants and planning further children after the current one, but I think those were good candidates to be left out of this version.
I like the checklists strewn throughout the book, because it makes it easy to isolate information when you're leafing through the book. It has a useful table of contents, which is sorely missing in some other pregnancy manuals. I also like that it isn't a sugary sweet book, because many other pregnancy books are just too precious for me.
The only con for me was that the cross-references aren't complete in the proof copy. It would say, "For more information on this topic, see page XX," and I had no idea which page they actually meant. (There are no front matter pages, so it couldn't be page xx in the front matter.) I'm assuming that these cross-references will be accurate in the final version for sale.
May 31, 2012
My insurance company sent me this book in the mail and it was the first baby book I read, so I can at least say that it was informative, but I don't have a lot to compare it to. There was some blatant misinformation in the "what to avoid" section, and it is pretty biased towards "You must breastfeed no matter what," but it gave a decent general overview of the labor process.
Was it worth reading? I feel like I know more now about labor than I did before, so it was worth it from that perspective.
Would I have paid money to put it on my bookshelf? Probably not.
Was it worth reading? I feel like I know more now about labor than I did before, so it was worth it from that perspective.
Would I have paid money to put it on my bookshelf? Probably not.
January 2, 2010
I am glad that I read this book. I really didn't like the "stories" from the women's experiences in this book, I found them very childish almost and could have done without them. This book definitely was "Simple" as stated in the title and was very easy to read and to follow along. I will definitely take the advice and techniques suggested for when I'm in labour.
November 2, 2012
I love their pregnancy, childbirth and newborn care book and this is a nice overview of the childbirth and newborn sections. It's clear and to the point and the text boxes with birthing stories are helpful. It will be going in my hospital bag!
December 30, 2012
Shudder. This was loaned to us. Just seemed like this was geared to a really young audience...way too young to be having children themselves! I guess it's good that this is out there, but it just made me sad.
March 10, 2013
This book is a good first book to read for parents to be who have little knowledge on pregnancy and labor; it'll make other pregnancy and labor books less intimidating and confusing. It provides basic information, but informative none the less.
March 17, 2015
Great Read
This book was very helpful and educational. I learned more about pregnancy, parenting and the importance of your partner's or family support. I love that they had other people stories and I love the list of resources at the end.
This book was very helpful and educational. I learned more about pregnancy, parenting and the importance of your partner's or family support. I love that they had other people stories and I love the list of resources at the end.
June 7, 2018
preparing to becoming a doula and this book has been incredibly informative, wonderful educational book for those having a baby, spouses, best friends, or simply just to learn more about motherhood and newborns!
May 22, 2022
Book has useful good content. I did find the personal stories to be elementary and kind of annoying, and the edition I read is out of date. The descriptions for things like discoloration and reactions babies can have do not take into account that not every baby is white or had light skin.
April 11, 2014
Very quick and easy to understand. I was not impressed with the content. It did not talk about choices but rather what "would" happen. I was surprised as I usually like books by Simkin.
August 4, 2016
Helpful read.
July 8, 2018
very simple and easy to understand
February 19, 2021
Great information for expecting mothers, doulas, or partners!
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews