Asking for a Pregnant Friend: 101 Answers to Questions Women Are Too Embarrassed to Ask about Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Motherhood

by Bailey Gaddis

All too often, pregnant women and the mothers of newborns have questions they are too embarrassed to ask their doctors, friends, mothers, and sisters. "What is that smell? Is the fetus really okay when I have sex? Should my labia look like this? What should I do if I’m sad about my baby’s gender? What’s the real deal with pooping during labor? Is it normal to be jealous of my baby?" Women who summon the courage to ask these questions online are frequently met with unwelcome judgments or inaccurate information. Bailey Gaddis is determined to provide them with real, safe, savvy, and nonjudgmental answers because she was one of them herself. She had so many unanswered questions before and after her child’s birth that she trained as a doula and has since become a beloved and sought-after in-person and online childbirth educator. She’s basically an unflappable, modern combination of Dr. Ruth, Dear Abby, and Dr. Spock. Her uniquely authoritative, accessible, and sometimes funny treasure trove of answers will leave women heard, informed, reassured — and no longer afraid to ask.

Genres: Nonfiction, Parenting, Self Help

376 pages, Paperback

Published June 1, 2021

About the author

Bailey Gaddis is a mother, author, childbirth preparation educator, birth doula, hypnotherapist and contributor to Working Mother, Pregnancy and Newborn, Disney’s Babble, The Huffington Post, Cosmopolitan, Redbook, Expectful, Elephant Journal, Scary Mommy, and other publications that are into her style of weaving words. She continuously finds inspiration for her writing via the stream of consciousness flowing out of her son’s mouth, and the insane shenanigans she witnesses during births (and at the park before nap time).

Her work as a birth professional, and past egg donor and surrogacy coordinator, allows her to support, and be inspired by, rockstar pregnant women and their gorgeous offspring
every day. She’s fairly certain “new baby smell” is the most enticing aroma on Earth.

Bailey lives every day in complete awe of the creation, birth, and nurturing of new life, and considers the mother-baby bond the pinnacle of magic, which is why she’s thinking about beginning to think about Baby Number Two.

For a list of Bailey’s online courses, visit BaileyGaddis.com.

Reviews

[Steff Fox · Rating 4 out of 5]

I should probably preface this with the fact that I don’t read a lot of pregnancy books and therefore don’t have much to compare this to. That said, I definitely feel like I learned a lot. Some of my preconceived fears about pregnancy were addressed, which I was grateful for.

I think my one complaint really centers around my distaste for hypnotic interventions and meditation. It just really put me off overall. But this certainly isn’t a bad book and I’m glad that I read it.

[Amber + Casey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Asking for a Pregnant Friend: 101 Answers to Questions Women Are Too Embarrassed to Ask about Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Motherhood is an easy read. Nothing is in academic language and terms/words are defined for the reader. There is even a glossary of terms towards the end of the book. I also appreciated the list of resources provided at the end of the book as well.

The other thing that makes Asking for a Pregnant Friend: such an easy read is the ability to cherry pick the questions and sections you are most interested in. This makes it a great book to have on a nightstand that you can easily read through before bed.

I found some entries lacking or maybe it just felt like some the "what to do" sections were redundant, but maybe that's just the nature of being a birthing body.

Disclaimer: I was a Goodreads book winner

The book also does a good job of promoting birthing rights and advocating for autonomy in the birthing process. The book also doesn't lean to heavily in one direction (c-section/natural birth/home birth/hospital birth/etc) and tries to provide as much information for all birthing options and types.

One area that was lacking (in that there was none) in the book is a focus on seahorse dads and trans and non-binary birthing bodies.

[Malarie · Rating 3 out of 5]

There’s nothing wrong with this book, however, most of the questions either didn’t apply to me OR as a nurse, I already knew the answers to.
Would be a great book for someone not in the medical field who was having her first child, though.

[Abby · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this book through a Goodreads Giveaway and thoroughly enjoyed reading it as someone who knew little about pregnancy and birthing but has always wanted to have children someday. This book is a great introduction and overview of many topics surrounding motherhood. It also opened my eyes to how positive labor and delivery can be. Will definitely be keeping this one in my library for the years to come.

*Side-note: My copy was misprinted and missing a significant portion (about 10-15) of the questions at the end of the pregnancy section. No fault of Bailey Gaddis’ but did want to mention.*

[Mary Butler · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won this book in a giveaway quite a while ago but started reading it now that I’m pregnant. I found this book super helpful and love the index of questions at the back to easily look things up later on as well. It definitely answered some questions I had as well as gave me information on questions I hadn’t even thought of! I liked that there were questions and answers about the actual pregnancy and birth process as well as parenting and other fears or questions regarding motherhood in general. Absolutely would recommend to other moms to be!

[Sandy Reenders · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aunt Georgia sent me this book and I enjoyed it! Since I own it, I skimmed over the topics that don’t interest me and know I can always to back to reference. I like the straightforward but silly way the author answers questions, some I didn’t even know to ask. Good prep, but of course a dose of things I don’t agree with scattered throughout

[Alexandria · Rating 4 out of 5]

I skimmed this one and I think that this would be a good reference for when specific questions arise. It isn't one I would read cover to cover although it was interesting to see some of the topics covered.

[Nicole Villaseñor · Rating 1 out of 5]

No fue mi tipo de libro, sentí que las preguntas realmente eran o muy obvias o ninguna había pasado por mi cabeza.

Algunas si son buenas y te ayuda a entender que a muchas nos puede pasar por la cabeza pero en general un poco aburrido el libro.

[Mira · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book had lots of information. At the beginning of the book, there an organized list of topics that one might want to know more about. This book is very informative.

[Lolo Onda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I won this book through the Goodreads Giveaway and it was one of the first pregnancy books I have ever read. I like Gaddis' no nonsense approach and flat out honesty throughout the book. It felt informational while also just a book that gave a lot of perspective from her individual approach / mindset on childbirth and postpartum. I like that the book was presented in the form of questions and answers but some of the topics seemed to randomly float from one to another. Overall, a good resource for new moms!

[April · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not at all what I expected. Many of the questions are excrement nuanced situations and not relatable