Joanne Stone - Pregnancy All-In-One for Dummies

Pregnancy All-in-One For Dummies

Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com

Copyright 2016 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2016934262

ISBN 978-1-119-23549-1 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-119-23551-4 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-119-23550-7 (ebk)

1. Table of Contents

Prospective parents are truly curious about everything related to pregnancy, from when the babys heart is formed to whether eating sushi or dyeing your hair is okay. If this describes you, youve come to the right place. In one helpful reference guide, Pregnancy All-in-One For Dummies offers the answers to many of your pregnancy-related questions, from fetal development to workouts for moms-to-be to healthy weight gain and more.

Pregnancy should be a joy, not a worry. Yet pregnant women are, by nature, already anxious about whether anything they do or eat may hurt the baby. The source of all this anxiety? Often its information on pregnancy in print, online, or from the mouths of well-meaning but clueless friends and family that is outdated, lacks scientific basis, or is exaggerated for shock effect. The result is that many pregnant women and their partners end up incredibly worried about something theyve read or heard.

This comprehensive, scientifically correct guide presents the facts of pregnancy based on real scientific data, and it answers many commonly asked questions all while encouraging the humor and light-heartedness that are part of the miraculous process of having a baby. A big part of the philosophy behind this book is to reassure pregnant women instead of adding to the unnecessary worries they already have.

Prospective parents also want to know about the medical aspects of pregnancy. When are fingers developed? Which blood tests should be done, and why? What options are available for detecting various problems? This book addresses these topics, too, creating what is essentially a medical text on obstetrics for the layperson.

This book provides a lot of factual information, but it isnt gospel. Many of the topics discussed apply to pregnancy in general, but your particular situation may have unique aspects that warrant different or extra consideration, so use this book as a companion to regular medical care.

Sidebars (boxes of text) in this book give you a more in-depth look at a certain topic. Although they further illuminate a particular point, these sidebars arent crucial to understanding the rest of the book. Feel free to read them or skip them. You can pass over the text that accompanies the Technical Stuff icon as well. The text associated with this icon gives some interesting details about pregnancy, but if you dont read it, you can still come away with the information you need.

Within this book, you may note that some web addresses break across two lines of text. If youre reading this book in print and want to visit one of these web pages, simply key in the web address exactly as its noted in the text, pretending the line break doesnt exist. If youre reading this as an e-book, youve got it easy just click the web address to be taken directly to the web page.

We made some assumptions about you and what you want out of a pregnancy book:

• You may be a woman who is considering pregnancy, planning to have a baby, or already pregnant.
• You may be the partner of the mother-to-be.
• You may know and love someone who is or plans to become pregnant.
• You want to find out more about pregnancy but have no interest in becoming an expert on the topic.
• You want reliable information on a variety of topics related to pregnancy, from information on the development of the fetus to how to stay fit as your body changes, whether and how to breastfeed, and more.

If you fit any of these criteria, then Pregnancy All-in-One For Dummies gives you the information youre looking for.

Like other For Dummies books, this one uses icons to guide you through the information.

This icon signals information that delves a little deeper than usual into a medical explanation.