"Pregnancy Your Way: Choose a Safe and Happy Birth" Now Available on Amazon
There are many popular books available for mothers-to-be. And while you may think it couldn’t be possible to write another book that covered topics not already talked about several times over, let me assure you there is no other book about pregnancy like this one.
We recognize that more than 90 percent of pregnancies will result in a relatively safe and happy birth. In our book, we present pregnancy-related health issues for moms, dads, and children to promote and improve good outcomes for whole families for years to come. Much of the information in this book about how to have a safe and happy pregnancy never makes it into prenatal visits with doctors.
A small percentage of mothers will encounter pregnancy-related problems such as preeclampsia, high blood pressure, diabetes, and depression. Again, much of the information about these problems and how to deal with them never comes out in prenatal and postpartum visits. We offer advice for managing and even preventing some of these problems in pregnancy and a woman’s postpartum course.
Postpartum depression is a particularly troublesome pregnancy problem because many believe it is not predictable. I’ve talked about postpartum depression being preventable in a previous Substack post. Our book has an entire section on postpartum depression and provides guidelines for recognizing risk for postpartum depression and what moms and dads can do to avoid the problem.
No one expects to become a maternal mortality statistic, but the fact remains that the U.S. maternal mortality rate is higher than in any other developed nation. There are about 1205 deaths per year according to the CDC’s count for 2021. The CDC indicates that 4 out of 5—or 80 percent—of these deaths are preventable. The Scandinavian countries have maternal deaths of 2-3 per 100,000 births. In plain English, in the U.S., a mother has a far greater risk of dying in childbirth than in any other developed country. Our book provides women the information they need to make choices in cooperation with their doctors for safer pregnancies.
I’ve heard people say that obstetrics is 98 percent boredom and 2 percent terror. I disagree. Years of delivering healthy babies from healthy moms has shown me obstetrics should be
100 percent looking for subtle signs of developing problems and addressing the problems before they become disasters.
Our book helps women learn what to watch for in pregnancy and when to call their doctor. This may seem a simplistic notion, but in our current healthcare system, this can be a daunting task. Every chapter has real stories about how my patients worked with me to solve problems encountered during pregnancy. Our book lets moms and dads know that they are not alone with their concerns and how to manage pregnancy for the best longterm outcomes.