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Mother Rising By Yana Cortlund, Barb Lucke, Donna Miller Watelet

2011-05-01T20:49:00.000-05:00

This book is a guide to creating a Blessingway ceremony for a mom to be. I loved the concept of this book. I love the thought of a Blessingway and have had the privilege of partaking in a Blessingway ceremony, yet to me, this book fell flat. I had high hopes this book would be an exciting read. I opened it with great anticipation, but my comments for it fall somewhere along the lines of “don’t waste your time.”

For one, this book was very New Agey. I’m not into all of that. We don’t have to call God “Spirit.” Why can’t we just call Him what He is: God. This review is not meant to argue religion, but I can safely say the majority of people believe in God, not “Spirit.” So, while the authors tried to cater to all religions with a vague term such as Spirit, they neglected their main audience: women who believe in God since this is the majority. A Blessingway is meant to honor the mother and can easily be done without the need to invite dead relatives or pray to the “Goddess.” I would have liked less of that hogwash and more ideas on ways to honor the mother.

I was also disappointed with the lack of ideas of exactly what to do with the Blessingway. It’s just my opinion of course, but the authors managed to say a whole lot of nothing in the book. Save your time and money, it’s not hard to figure out what to do. At a Blessingway, provide lots of yummy food for the guests, tell everyone to bring a bead to make the mother a labor bracelet to wear during her birth, provide everyone with a take home candle to light when the mother goes into labor, get a bellycasting kit, give her a massage, paint her belly with artistic henna, wash her feet, write poems for her and read them aloud, tie everyone’s wrist with a string they can’t cut off until the mother gives birth, etc. There’s really not a whole lot more to it than that, and you certainly won’t find more suggestions in this book.

The one thing I can confirm the book did well was list recipes for the event. Most of them make my mouth water and I do plan to try them for the next Blessingway event I host.

Oh well… maybe another book, another time.

Sexy Forever by Suzanne Somers

2011-02-28T22:18:00.001-06:00

I’m a fan of Suzanne Somers, so when she writes a new book, I am sure to read it. For the most part, this book did not disappoint. Somers has taken information that can be found in other sources, but has compiled it for easy reading and reference. This book is intelligent, well-written, and thorough.

Here’s what I liked:

The discussion presented on toxins is wonderful. Most people don’t realize how toxic our living conditions are and how much they affect our health. Another major aspect of a toxic body is weight gain. Somers presents the information in an encouraging, understandable, and non-overwhelming way. Readers will learn how toxins make us fat and undermine our health and how to avoid them as best as possible. I especially loved the alternatives to organic food for those who can’t avid organic and be sure to check out the list at the back of the book for ingredients to avoid in foods and in other products. It’s very comprehensive!

Somers also addresses ways to detoxify, which is crucial for health and weight loss. Other topics include the importance of sleep, why as we age we can’t sleep as well, and what to do to get the restorative sleep we all need. Somers discusses sex and there is additionally a devoted section to bioidentical hormone replacement therapy.

Somers maintains “there are no shortcuts to true health.” I couldn’t agree more.

I also appreciated the chapter on supplementing. Somers discusses supplements in depth. Some tricks mentioned such as taking supplements as to how they occur in nature such as natural folate and not just folic acid, mixed tocopherals, not just alpha tocopheral and which vitamin B 12 to take are all important things mentioned.

Gut health is also discussed in depth, which is crucial for so many of us. Food sensitivities, particularly gluten, I addressed at length. Enzymes, probiotics, hydrocholoric acid, and fiber are explained as well as leaky gut syndrome. This book is unique in that so much information can be found in one place.

This book is different from Somers two previous books, Breakthrough and Knockout, though readers will find some of the same themes mentioned.

Here’s what I didn’t like:

The book feels a little too commercially. As many readers know, Somers manufactures products and has quite a thriving business selling these products on her website. Many references to the products are mentioned throughout her book, giving the book not entirely a balanced perspective.

Somers also has a weight loss plan called Somersize, which readers will find the plan presented in this book is very similar with only minor tweaks.

Personally, for me being a vegetarian, Somers program won’t work for me at all. Half of the book contains recipes that for many people will be helpful, though for me, known of them were vegetarian. I’m not quite sure why Somers hasn’t jumped on the vegetarian bandwagon. Most health advocates are very outspoken for the vegetarian lifestyle as research has been finding is the healthiest way of living if you want to avoid disease. Somers meals are heavily reliant on meat and cheese, which I found odd. Almost all diets and all health advocates are unsupportive of cheese during weight loss.

I suppose her plan could work for some, though it’s mostly a focus on eating real food, which we should be doing anyway. Anyone who shifts to eating real food instead of constant fast food is going to notice an improvement in their health.

For weight loss and healthy eating, I still wholeheartedly recommend Eat to Live by Dr. Joel Fuhrman. It’s the best book written on this subject that I have ever read and I can personally attest to the results.

Bottom line: If you don’t mind Somers mentioning some of her products in the book and you’re interested in trying her weight loss plan, this book will be a sure hit. You’ll come away educated and empowered, and that’s something we all need.

The Doula Guide to Birth By Ananda Lowe and Rachel Zimmerman

2011-02-21T19:10:00.001-06:00

I was impressed with this book. It is well written, objective, and chocked full of information. As a labor and delivery nurse and doula myself, I can verify this information is spot on.

One thing I enjoyed in this book is the discussion of when epidurals and Cesareans happen, but were unplanned. I recently attended a birth in which my client wanted a natural birth, but after extenuating circumstances and over 30 hours of natural labor, she opted for an epidural. What I was reminded of from this experience is that there are times when interventions such as an epidural or even a Cesarean do become necessary, and it is important to remember this is not a failure. The goal for a natural delivery is usually to avoid unnecessary intervention, but since labor is neither predictable or controllable, it is so important to recognize some interventions do become necessary in some circumstances. I love how this is addressed in this book.

Another concept discussed in this book that is often overlooked in other books is belly dancing during labor. This was very interesting to me. The authors highlight how it’s done and the benefits. I can’t say I’ve tried it myself, but I do remember during my labor with my daughter, how important it was for me to move my hips. I had to move the intense energy I felt, so I spun my hips in circles. I can imagine this concept of belly dancing would be beneficial in the same way.

This book also gives labor support techniques and assistance with writing a birth plan. The information is comprehensive.

There is information in the book on how to find a doula, though I felt this section was a bit lacking. I would have liked there to be a little more focus on the importance of a doula, especially a birth doula, and I felt there just wasn’t enough discussion on this.

My only other complaint was a lengthy discussion on walking epidurals, which I was a bit hesitant on the accuracy of the information presented. Perhaps, there are different approaches to epidurals, but the way I understand them is an epidural is an epidural. The anesthesiologist can adjust the medication, therefore giving a lower dose in some cases, but the way the medication works for each woman is different. Some woman won’t get relief from the lower dose, and it’s not going to be possible to “walk.” Walking epidurals were once touted as a great innovation, but are becoming outdated. A walking epidural is not the cure-all answer.

For the most part, I felt this book was great. If you’re interested in learning more about birth and the importance of doulas, then this is a book to move to the top of your list.

The Home Birth Advantage by Mayer Eisenstein

2011-01-03T17:57:00.000-06:00

Being the huge proponent of homebirth that I am, I was fairly certain I would like a book with the title The Home Birth Advantage, and I was right. For the most part, I liked this book, so I’ll start with the positives.

I love the beginning section of this book. The author says so many truisms of birth that I could practically quote his entire writing.

What’s different about this book from other books on the topic of homebirth is that the author is not afraid to outright proclaim homebirth is safe. Of course, homebirth is safe. Research supports this conclusion, yet the author is correct in his assertion that no other book outrightly proclaims this. Other books say homebirth is a nice option, but they do not go far enough in saying that homebirth is THE option for almost all pregnant women.

What I also loved about this book that no other book I have read on any subject does is that the author doesn’t simply require us to take his word that homebirth is the safest option, he explains to us how to research it for ourselves. Other authors blab on about the scientific research they’ve reviewed for their book, but few will tell you how to do as they’ve done. Being educated about a subject does require an investigation into what science has to say about a topic, yet many people don’t know how to go about searching the research. A simple google search is not at all sufficient!

Now, there were a few things I had quams with in this book. This book is written by a medical doctor and there is a phrase in the book that states something to the effect of homebirth is only safe when there is a skilled medical doctor present. Nowhere in the entire book does he once mention midwives. To me, midwives and homebirth are synonymous of one another. Midwives have been carrying the torch of homebirth for far longer than any medical doctor. They’ve taken much abuse for it, often being persecuted as felons. To not acknowledge them for the skilled professionals they are, strong and courageous women, in a book about homebirth- the very thing they do- is an insult. They should have at least been addressed in the book. Period.

Much of the book consisted of the author recounting some of his experiences and giving much details of his organization, Homefirst. There’s a history of homebirth in Chicago and also information on the founding of Le Leche League- something the author is an avid supporter of. The book ends with recounts of births by his family members. There are also some homebirth stories littered throughout.

I found this book to be lacking in meat and potatoes. I’m glad the author is supportive of homebirth and breastfeeding, yet this book really doesn’t give any information that’s useful on these subjects. I had trouble relating to the childbirth stories. I grew bored at times. There wasn’t much of the scientific evidence mentioned in the book. No statistics as to why one would want to consider a homebirth- only that they should. Also, there is no bibliography, works cited, or notes at the end of the book, citing the research he used. I feel a medical doctor should be aware that if they’re writing a book at all, much less one that’s controversial in nature going against societal standards, of course references to the scientific literature should be included.

This book is a bit outdated as the copy I have was written in 2000. Many of the references he makes are to things that happened in the 70’s and 80’s.

The last complaint I have is the author’s continual quoting and mentioning of Dr. Joseph DeLee, whom is often referred to as the Father of Modern Obstetrics. The way the author portrays Dr. DeLee is inaccurate from my perception. Dr. DeLee made many pigheaded remarks about women and our ability to give birth in his lifetime, and I often wonder why he was even an obstetrician. He’s exactly what’s wrong with obstetrics today, and in his lifetime, he arguably did more harm than good. I don’t understand why the author seems to be confused on this point.

I realize my review seems more proportionally negative now that I’ve written it. This wasn’t a bad book, there were simply some inconsistencies I must mention. I wouldn’t call this book a must read. A comparable, but much more informative book on this topic would be The Thinking Woman’s Guide to a Better Birth by Henci Goer. That book has the meat and potatoes I look for.

Intuitive Parenting by Debra J. Synder, PhD

2010-11-15T12:31:00.003-06:00

It is most unfortunate that I have to report I really didn't enjoy this book. It's a shame because I really wanted to like it. I love the subject matter, and I as excited to read it. I was quite disappointed.

I just didn't connect with this book. It was boring, and I felt as though I was wasting my time reading it. This book is quite new agey, which isn't necessarily a problem in itself for most people, but for these concepts discussed, it was just not explained well.

The author professes to have studied these concepts in depth and has a PhD to show for it, yet I can't pinpoint a single thing I learned from this book nor something special or important to add to my life because of it.

The author begins each chapter with information about her life. She has a disabled daughter in which many of the stories she shared touched my heart. I would have liked to read more about that. After the short story in each chapter, there was simply just a bunch of talk- talk about concepts I feel most people won't be able to relate to.

There are exercises to do at the end of each chapter. There wasn't one in which I really found useful for my day to day life. It's hard to do guided imagery or meditation while reading it off a page, and I certainly didn't memorize it to do while not reading.

I found many of the author's terms confusing. She makes up a lot of her own terms and language without proper explanation, e.g. Heartglow. She also refers to God, the Universe, Source, Spirit, amongst others. It isn't clear to me as to whether the author is referring to a different entity with each capitalized reference or the same one with creativity of a different name.

In general, I am interested in the concepts of this book. I believe there is a lot about energy in which we do not understand, and I'm open to learning about it, yet this book just wasn't the source for that. I love the idea of being in tune with your children, connected and intimate, understanding them in a way only you can. I love to read about unexplanable moments in which there seemed to be an energetic connection between two people, an intuitive knowing or sense of something. I'm open to these ideas, yet this book just fell short.

I also found this book poorly referenced for the subject matter covered.

I appreciate what the author was trying to do with this book. I respect her life circumstances and the profound connection she has with her daughter. I respect what she shared in this book and I appreciate her bearing her soul.

Other than those things, this book just didn't resonate with me. It may be different for others, but my recommendation is there are so many other books to read out there, this one is a waste of time and money.

Eat To Live By Joel Fuhrman

2010-11-01T18:39:00.002-05:00

I was unbelievably impressed by this book. Nowhere have I found more accurate nutritional information contained all in one book. This has become my top recommendation for books on nutrition. If you eat this way, you will be healthy.

Being a vegetarian myself, I especially enjoyed Dr. Fuhrman's accurate assessment on meat and meat products. I will admit it is bizarre to me that people choose to eat meat. I understand it is a misguided notion to get enough protein, but biologically, it is questioned as to whether we are really designed to eat meat. One thing is for certain, however, and that is that we can live and thrive without meat. This book will show you how.

I also appreciated Dr. Fuhrman's reliance on scientific study to base his recommendations. This book is well referenced. In writing this book, Dr. Fuhrman reviewed more than 2,000 nutritional studies. People can argue about what to eat all day, but it all depends on the research. This is one of the best referenced books on nutrition I have seen.

This information in this book wasn't new to my family. We eat this way already, but it is so nice to have validation for the way we eat. We eat this way because we want to be healthy and because we want to live a long disease free life. My children hardly get sick. They don't complain about what we're eating, and I've never had trouble getting them to eat their vegetables (we had a salad with beets, onions, and orange peppers on it today for example). This is the best gift we can give ourselves- the gift of good health.

The basic way of eating in this book is to avoid animal products, at least during the beginning weight loss stage. One may choose to add meat back in twice a week at most after 6weeks. Meat is to be thought of as a condiment. So, basically we eat one pound of fresh veggies and an additional pound of cooked veggies, one cup of beans a day, one handful of nuts, a tablespoon of ground flaxseed, and all the fruit we want. It's a whole lot of food- there's no way to go hungry because you're not limiting yourself. You'll get plenty of nutrients and protein on this plan. It's perfect for weight loss.

Whether you're wanting to lose weight or you just want to eat healthier, then this book will teach you what you need to know. Healthy food is delicious so have an open mind and read this book today!

The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman

2010-10-16T12:50:00.001-05:00

I recently reviewed The Five Love Languages of Children, which is an excellent book. It was so good, in fact, that I decided to read the one for married couples. It has to be stressed that one of the best things you can do for your children is to keep a strong marriage. The difficulties of divorce on children are well known. With parents who attachment parent, this often takes a lot of time. If not careful, sometimes a marriage will suffer. This is why I feel it important to read this book.

While most of us love our spouse and may even be trying to show our spouse love, it is possible that our spouse will not pick up on our love gestures and will therefore feel unloved. This is because our spouse speaks a different love language.

There are five love languages as evidenced by the title. They are physical touch, words of affirmation, quality time, gifts, and acts of service. One of these five things will speak the most love to your spouse. Usually, we try to show love in the way that we feel most loved, yet very rarely does a couple have the same love language.

It is possible to also be speaking your spouse’s love language, yet not speaking what the author calls the right dialect. For example, my love language is acts of service. I like thoughtful gestures, and I feel super alive, happy, stress free when our house is clean. I have to give my husband credit in that he does a lot of cleaning. From this book we found out, however, that it is not always the right dialect for me. I realized I feel most loved when the floors are clean and the kitchen counters and table are clean and the bed is made than when the laundry is done or the toilets cleaned. This was an important revelation for our marriage.

Conversely, we figured out my husband’s love language is words of affirmation. I usually show him love by acts of service… by keeping things clean, paying bills, planning meals, etc. I handle most of our lives’ responsibilities. I would think to myself, “What more does he want?” With this book, it dawned on me that I really don’t speak words of affirmation very well. I underestimate them and don’t give them my attention. Changing this takes conscience effort. We sat done and wrote out our needs, and it’s been worth it.

I love this entire concept of this author. He writes this information in such a relatable way. The book is an easy read, but more than likely, it will make a huge difference in your life.

When a family can begin speaking each other’s love languages, this family will be successful.

Check out Gary Chapman’s other books as well. There are several other marriage books as well as love languages book about God and for teenagers. Highly recommend!

His Needs Her Needs By Willard F Harley Jr.

2010-10-07T11:49:00.001-05:00

I have yet to read a better book on marriage. This book gives it to you straight. So, what is a book review about marriage doing on a parenting book review site? Well, a good marriage has a lot to do with parenting. Those of us into attachment parenting can sometimes get so caught up in meeting the needs of our children, we forget about the needs of our spouse.

This book addresses what the 10 basic needs are in a relationship. Each need is discussed in depth. It’s interesting that men and women usually rate their needs in complete opposite from each other, clearly showing men and women have different needs.

The author asserts that people get too caught up in worrying about our own needs being met and rarely think about the needs of our spouse getting met. This is why we have such a high divorce rate. It’s natural to want to see our own needs met, but also meeting the needs of our spouse is important. If we don’t properly meet each other’s needs, a marriage is susceptible to an affair.

This book gives a lot of information on affairs- how they begin, why they begin, the consequences, and how to move past them. While affairs are devastating, they don’t mean a marriage has to be over. There is a way out.

This book opened my eyes. With its plethora of stories and examples, I could easily grasp why meeting my husband’s needs are so important. I never thought an affair would be possible in our marriage because we are both strongly convicted against it, but from this book, I was able to learn that if needs aren’t met, even the most well-meaning, compatible marriages can be susceptible.

From this book, I realized I had been trying to meet needs that were important to me, but not necessarily my husband. I realized I really wasn’t even sure what his needs are. Life gets so busy and especially as a women, things demand our attention. I wasn’t even aware that maybe he had needs that weren’t getting met. Now, I was able to figure out exactly what his needs were (through a questionnaire in the appendix) and now I can meet his actual needs and he can meet mine.

It’s worth it to your children to have a strong marriage and that type of marriage takes an investment of time and concentration. In the very least, read this book!

The Five Love Languages of Children by Gary Chapman and Ross Campbell, M.D.

2010-09-27T13:35:00.001-05:00

An excellent book in a series of books that enlighten on the five love languages. Never heard of them? I hadn’t either. If you haven’t read this book, you’re seriously missing out.

The authors maintain there are five love languages: quality time, words of affirmation, gifts, acts of service, and physical touch. All five languages are important to exhibit to our children and all the loved ones in our lives, yet there is one language that will speak most strongly to an individual. This is the love language that will be most beneficial to exhibit to a child so that they feel loved, and it’s different for every child.

This book is a real eye opener. I recently enrolled my son and I in a class at our community center. It’s something we can do together to spend time just us. I’ve noticed how much he thrives on this time, and it’s changed things about how he acts. He’s always behaved pretty well, but lately, he’s been very helpful around the house. Once I read this book, it dawned on me that his primary love language is quality time. He appreciates nice things I do for him, gifts we give him, and nice words we say. He always politely thanks my husband and I, yet none of those things speak to him as loudly as quality time. This is how he feels most loved.

Conversely, the book discusses the five love languages and discipline. This book contains a great discussion on discipline, which is something many parents confuse as synonymous with punishment. The two are not the same thing, and this book sheds light on how they differ. A unique approach this book takes, however, is in the explanation of how to discipline according to the love languages. In my son’s case, for instance, since his love language is quality time, he shouldn’t be disciplined by taking time outs alone in his room. This separation does more harm than good because he associates this form of discipline directly with love, and when we use this form of discipline, it speaks to him as if we don’t love him. This was precisely the form of discipline I had been using. I had noticed how much he hated timeouts in his room, yet I thought that was good as if the discipline was working. I see it a different way now.

We’ve applied this information to our marriage as well with some equally good results. My husband has found that my love language is acts of service, so doing things around the house directly equates as love to me. His love language is definitely not acts of service, so he didn’t understand sometimes why a messy house would bother me in the way that it does. Discovering our love languages has helped us be more loving as a family. Sometimes, we know someone loves us, but we don’t always feel as though they love us.

This book gives information on each love language individually and ways to discover your loved ones’ love language. There is also a chapter for single parents and the love languages for married couples. If you enjoy this book, also check out The Five Love Languages of God, The Five Love Languages, and The Five Love Languages of Teenagers. Highly recommend.

Disease Proof Your Child: Feeding Kids Right By Joel Fuhrman M.D.

2010-09-20T16:11:00.003-05:00

This book is hands down fantastic. I am quite impressed with this book and even more impressed that it was written by a medical doctor as most don’t know so much about nutrition.

I can’t say enough good things about this book, and I feel it should be required reading for absolutely every parent. For starters, it is easy to read and reads quickly, so there is no excuse not to read it.

What you will find in this book is a blue print of exactly how to feed your children if you want them to be as healthy as possible.

This book makes it exceedingly clear why our nation’s children are so unhealthy and why good nutrition is crucial. As parents, this is our responsibility, and it is one we are failing at as a group. The author discusses the health consequences of our standard way of eating and what we can do about it.

I am so impressed with Dr. Fuhrman because he just gets it. In his practice, he uses a program of “nutritional excellence” to treat and cure all types of ailments instead of prescribing medications that only mask symptoms.

What I especially appreciated about this book is the author’s knowledge of healthy eating. He maintains that we do not need animal products to be healthy. On the contrary, it is healthier not to have them. His knowledge is sound. He also assures a diet fit for adult humans is also fit for child humans. This is a question typical of many parents because we have been so brainwashed by corporate interests. We want to do what is best for our children, yet we don’t always know how to do that. Does that bag of Doritos really matter? Don’t kids need milk for strong bones? How will growing kids get enough protein if they don’t eat meat? These questions are sincere concerns from parents, and after reading this book, parents will not only have the knowledge to know what to feed their children, but the peace that they are providing their children with what they need.

One central theme of the book highlights the importance of childhood nutrition and the occurrence of disease later in life. While the author points out that there is benefit to eating and living healthfully at any age, researchers are beginning to understand just how critical excellent childhood nutrition is.

There was only one quam I had with this book and that is the author’s continual recommendation and reliance on soy milk. In all respect to the author, this book is five years old and soy milk was previously thought of as a super health food. There are growing concerns and awareness regarding soy foods, in which, they are clearly becoming important to avoid. Most soy is GMO, which means genetically modified. This is a separate topic, but these foods need to be stayed far away from. Soy needs to be fermented to have any health benefit. Unfermented soy as I understand it is dangerous. Soy acts as a pseudo-estrogen in the body. Excess estrogen can cause all sorts of health problems, including cancer and many chemicals also mimic estrogen in our bodies. Most soy is processed crap- tofu, vegan meats, etc. The author of this book recommends soy milk often, which can easily be substituted with other nut milks. Almond milk is readily available, but for the healthiest milk make it at home yourself.

I can easily recommend this book to parents who are searching for the way to feed their children that will give their children the best start in life. This book is outstanding.

Discipline Without Shouting or Spanking by Jerry Wyckoff and Barbara C. Unell

2010-08-11T12:54:00.003-05:00

This book is old. I believe my mom used it when I was little, and this is that same copy. Somehow, I found it in my sea of books and since the title sounded good, I thought I'd give it a shot.

I liked this book. Not every bit of advice will be right for each family, but there are some gold nuggets of information. This book is very easy to read and short, but covers a wide range of behaviors that a child can have and what to do about them. Each chapter is very short, being only several pages to devote to each problem. There's a case study/example for each behavior mentioned.

Just as this title implies, there is no shouting or spanking, which are philosophies we follow in our house. We definitely don't do spanking because we believe it's counterproductive, but sometimes, it's easy to get upset and yell. So, this book gives parents tools to use and follow, even when you're mad, so that you don't feel the need to shout and can stay in control. Sounds pretty good to me.

So, as I've shared in previous reviews, we were having some backtalking issues with my son. I've read several books on how to deal with this issue, some of which were not so good and didn't work. This book did work, however. I do believe backtalk has a lot to do with how the parent speaks to their child as well, but the advice reccommended in this book is easy, simple, and unique. So, basically, whatever word or phrase the child said that wasn't kind, the parent is to set a timer (one minute for each year of age) and the child is to repeat what it was they said for that amount of time. Let me say, it works like a charm. My son had to do it one time, that's all it took. Not only did that one unkind word go away, but all traces of backtalk did as well. I was quite pleased.

This book utilizes a timer quite often to produce the results a parent is looking for. Children can race against the timer to do their tasks or the timer says when a certain punishment is over. I can't see our family personally using the timer quite as much as recommended in the book, but the one time we used it, it worked.

The book also recommends using "Grandma's Rule" a lot, which is as soon as you do what it was I told you to do, you may do what you want to do. So, for example, say to your child, if you're ready to go with your coat and shoes on by the time the timer rings, you can play ten extra minutes before we leave.

For the most part, the advice in this book is good and can help a parent stay calm and in control while dealing with pesky early childhood behaviors. Simple and easy to follow, this book is totally recommended.

Pushed By Jennifer Block

2010-08-04T13:34:00.002-05:00

I first picked up this book several years ago when I was pregnant with my second child and planning my own underground homebirth. This book has long sense become very near and dear to my heart. I believe it is imperative for every pregnant woman to read the words contained within these pages. There is no other book as such revealing and explorative of the issues women are facing when we go to have our babies.

First, let me start by saying don't skip the introduction. I know it's easy to do, but you simply must read about "The Blonsky." I'll leave it at that.

Within the very first chapter alone, the author eloquently outlines the exact problems facing our modern maternity care system. This chapter addresses the use of medical management to control labor out of convenience and ignorance. This chapter is very thorough, covering all the various medical techniques to "manage" labor, and there is also some discussion on the business of birthing. It is a business after all.

The second chapter highlights information regarding Cesarean sections "the short cut." A story of a couple delivering via Cesearean is shared. There were several quotes in this chapter that I particularly enjoyed. One physician says, "There's no reason not to do Pitocin." Another called expectant management (allowing a woman's labor to unfold in its own time) "babysitting." "I don't do the expectant management thing," she said. One charge nurse said, "Beds need to be kept free. This is not the place you come if you want to sit in a bathtub or roll on a ball. We have a high volume of deliveries. We can't just have people lying around, taking up labor beds, and walking the halls. We're very pro-epidural." So, if women are trained they need to birth in the hospital because that's the safest place for them, but the hospital is not the place to have a normal birth, then where are women supposed to go? Without the availability in many states of access to alternative care, women don't have choices, which is precisely the issue this book explores.

Some may know that I am a labor and delivery nurse by trade. I identify so clearly with the above quotes because I too have experienced this same phenomenon in a different hospital in a different state than where these quotes came from, and yet the issues are the same. I recall a meeting with my managers in which they felt I did not move my newly delivered patients quickly enough to postpartum. "It's just not safe for the other patients," they said, though the event in which they were referring to hadn't taken place at a time when that particular hospital room was needed. It didn't matter to them that the new mother was trying to breastfeed or still numb from the epidural and couldn't walk or for Heaven's sake was starving from not eating her whole labor and wanted to have a proper meal or Heaven forbid, bond with her baby. Nope. Get her delivered and move her out. It should come as no surprise that after having my own transformative homebirth, I could no longer settle for working at a job so disrespectful of women's needs and rights.

Chapter 3 addresses breech birth. In the U.S., most women are outrighted denied the option. Physicians are no longer trained in the art of breech birth, and while, breech does pose additional risks, a baby can still be delivered vaginally. Are the risks of vaginal breech greater than the risks of a Cesarean? Block states, "Ironically, it is independent homebirth midwives, some of who practice llegally, who are left to attend these higher risk vaginal births, and they are surpassing physicians in experience and expertise in the delicate matter of vaginal breech delivery." Go midwives!

The rest of the chapters are also not to be missed as they cover the consequences of medicalized birth, midwives, the underground movement, and womens' reproductive rights.

I could spend all day on this topic as it's my passion, but instead of continuing to read my review of this book, don't waste any more time. Go out and get yourself a copy because this is one every women should read. It's a rights issue, and it simply cannot be ignored any longer. Jennifer Block's writing is delicious, the information is sound, and you'll want to proclaim to the world after you've finished that we will take back our births!

The No Cry Potty Training Solution By Elizabeth Pantley

2010-05-29T14:02:00.002-05:00

It's no secret I'm a fan of Elizabeth Pantley's. She has a no nonsense approach, and her advice is sound. I have found the methods in her books work very well for our family, and therefore I highly recommend her.

This book is a nice addition to her collection of no cry books. However, I do not feel this book is necessary for everyone. There was not much in the book to set it apart from other potty training books in my mind. I believe this is because potty training is so basic. There's really not a whole lot to it. If you're a mother that's potty trained children before, then you're probably already aware of this. To a mother who has already potty trained atleast one child, this book really won't be very necessary for you in my opinion.

This book can be good, however, for mothers new at potty training and feel they haven't a clue how to do it. Again though, potty training in most cases is very basic. What's difficult for some mothers (I know because I have experience wit this) is that you can't make your child do it, you can't make them get it, and you can't have all the control. Sometimes, this is hard especially if you're really excited or anxious about your child learning to potty train. The best thing to do in this circumstance is to relax. Children can feel our anxieties. This is someting I feel Pantley touches on well in her book. Potty training truly shouldn't involve any crying. It should be easy and fun.

Another thing that is helpful in this book is the readiness quizzes. Sometimes, it's hard to tell if your child is ready. There's a lot of variables when it comes to potty training and a wide range in which it is considered normal for children to be learning. Some children don't always make it so obvious, so the quizzes can be helpful.

Now, there can be instances (though they are rare) where potty training can go awry. This book covers some of these issues, though I'm not sure if the depth these topics are covered in is actually helpful. This book presents in my opinion more of a general overview of potty training, including all the options. If you're experiencing a difficult situation with potty training your child, then a more thorough book or professional advice may be warranted.

If anything, this book does help to reassure that there are wide ranges of normal for potty training, ways to tell if your child is ready, how to start the process, and what outcomes to expect. It's nice to know we're not alone. It's nice t be reassured to just relax and enjoy the experience. All children get it in time, so it really isn't a very big deal. Just because one child is ready at a certain age, doesn't mean all children have to berady at that age. There doesn't need to be any pressure, and in that regard, this book does an excellent job.

It's a short and easy read, so if you're curious or needing advice, then don't hesitate. Pantley's writing is easy to understand, and she just may be able to walk you through the process.

The Thinking Woman's Guide To A Better Birth by Henci Goer

2010-05-08T16:38:00.001-05:00

This book is great! The author is right on, and the book contains a wealth of information. If you’re looking for a book that will tell you the truth about childcare in our nation, then you’ve come to the right place. Over a third of the book lists the author’s references, so rest assured, this book is well researched.

The book starts out with exactly what is wrong with obstetric management. The author points out that there is a gap between current obstetric practice and what current medical research suggests. The author asserts this is because obstetricians are basing their practices on a set of predetermined beliefs and an incorrect training. Obstetricians are taught to view birth as a series of potential problems. In reality, the author says this is often a self fulfilling prophecy, and without it, childbirth is no more dangerous than digestion.

Despite the calamities of childbirth in the hospital, there is another option. The midwifery model of care fits within the realities of childbirth and is founded on the belief that labor can be trusted to go right most of the time. The author quotes Michel Odent as saying, “One cannot help an involuntary process. The point is not to disturb it.”

The book goes on to discuss the Cesarean epidemic. There is one part of this section that I loved, which are the rationales for the grossly high Cesarean rate in our country. Here they are:
We don’t really know what the Cesarean rate should be
Babies have gotten bigger
My Cesarean rate is right on the national average
Our hospital handles more high risk cases
Women have the right to choose a Cesarean even when it isn’t medically indicated
Having personally worked in a labor and delivery ward, I can attest that this is the exact thinking held by most of the hospital staff.
So why do we have such a large Cesarean rate? The author answers that as well. Money, impatience, convenience, hospital culture and peer pressure, and defensive medicine.

Next, the book covers breech deliveries. The author asserts that Cesarean is not the only way to deliver these babies, and she supports her case well. Baically, the thinking is that breech is too dangerous to do vaginally and a Cesarean will solve all the problems. The author points out exactly why this isn’t so. There are many research physicians that have noted if an obstetrician doesn’t know how to do a vaginal breech delivery, then they son’t know how to do a Cesarean breech delivery either. Delivering a breech baby through the cut in the abdomen can pose the same problems as potentially during a vaginal delivery. The truth is though that most breech deliveries do just fine. This is another case of defensive medicine and a lack of skill. Breech deliveries is quickly becoming a lost art as physicians aren’t even allowed to learn how to do this anymore due to hospital constraints. Midwives, however, are still skilled in this area. The author also gives information on how to get a breech baby to turn.

Inductions are covered next under the heading: Mother Nature Knows Best. There are many things discussed in this section, but I’ll highlight the part I like best. The author recommends ways to avoid an unnecessary induction.
Refuse an elective induction for convenience
Choose a care provider carefully (the author gives question to ask)
Refuse an ultrasound to estimate fetal weight
Refuse an induction for a suspected large baby
Don’t permit your due date to be changed based on a later sonogram
If you know when you got pregnant, refuse a sonogram solely for the purpose of estimating your due date
Consider refusing routine tests of fetal well being (high rate of false positives), consider repeating tests if they come back unfavorable
Drink plenty of water before an ultrasound to measure the amount of amniotic fluid

Next follows a great chapter on IV’s. The author discusses why nothing by mouth during labor is foolish. She points out exactly why eating and drinking during labor is perfectly acceptible. The rationale behind not eating and drinking is the risk of aspiration if a woman needs to be put under general anesthesia. The risk of aspiration has more to do with an incompetent anesthesiologist than it does with what a woman eats or drinks. Narcotics can also play a role in the risk of aspiration, yet these are not limited in use whatsoever. It is pointed out that the risks of epidurals are often glossed over, while women are still denied food and water. The dangerousness of routine IV’s is also covered. There are no benefits of a routine IV or denial of food and drink during labor.

There are plenty more topics covered in this book, making it a truly worthwhile read. If you’re having a baby or thinking about having a baby, this is a book you absolutely must read. It is so important to be educated in this area. The author writes so eloquently. She is down to the point and easy to read and understand. The book reads quickly and is an excellent resource. Don’t just walk, run to the store to get your copy today.

The Whole Parent by Debra Wesselmann

2010-05-05T12:35:00.002-05:00

I cannot say enough good things about this book. I loved it! I can’t think of one parent that couldn’t benefit from this book. The main premise of this book deals with healing yourself as a parent from difficulties previously in your life to move on to become a terrific parent today. I would go even farther and say that this book is for all parents since none of us are perfect.

What I enjoyed the most about this book was the discussion of attachment. Since I am big on attachment parenting, it was nice to read about the theories in regards to attachment. I was amazed by how much information and explanation was contained in this book.

The next few sections deal with ghosts from your past and managing tough emotions. Basically, myths in parental thinking are examined in depth. It is so refreshing to examine oneself to grow as a person, and also to realize how your behaviors affect your children.

I also appreciated the author’s discussion on how to teach your children to manage their emotions. The book discusses being a holding environment for your child to help them manage their tough emotions. This information is strikingly different than other advice out there such as to ignore your toddler when they are throwing a tantrum to teach them that they won’t get attention for it. The premise in this book is that when a toddler is experiencing strong emotions, it can be scary for them because they do not yet know how to regulate their emotions. It’s important for the parent to stay with the child throughout their strong emotions. This also promotes a securer attachment. The book describes this advice well, and the information resonated in my soul.

There is also information in the book on touch and how important it is. Parents with a difficult past may be somewhat uncomfortable with touch. All of this is explored in depth. It’s so important to remember how much children need loving touch. In our busy society, it is easy to forget to give affection to our children in the form of touch. This is compounded by being a very materialistic society. That’s why I love the advice in the book of holding time, which is basically just cuddle time. It’s about making it a point to hold and cuddle your child. A good time is before bed. I think this comes very naturally when children are small, however, it is important not to forget that older children need this just as much. The book recommends to do holding time for as long as the child will allow it, often even to age 12 or beyond. There are also ways to connect with and show love to a teenager that no longer thinks it’s cool to cuddle. I found this information so refreshing. To some people, it may seem like common sense, but to other parents that struggle with inner demons and are working hard to overcome them, I would say this book is right on track.

This book is a must read for any parent that wants to be a good one.

Backtalk By Audrey Ricker and Carolyn Crowder

2010-04-06T10:38:00.001-05:00

In short, I liked this book. I enjoyed it much more than the last one I reviewed on the same topic. While I didn’t agree with 100% of everything, most of the information felt very sound to me. I fall under the category of believing that backtalk isn’t acceptable. Treat others as you want to be treated. Sounds good to me. As parents, it is our job to guide our children in the right direction. Allowing a child to speak rudely or unkindly doesn’t benefit the child in the long run. It seems there are advocates that believe a child’s speech is a freedom of expression and therefore should be allowed. I disagree. What I particularly liked about this book is that it still appears to be in conjunction positive discipline. I didn’t feel every example in the book demonstrated positive discipline, but many of them did. A few examples seemed a little harsher than what I would utilize. The difference between positive discipline and punishment is that punishments are usually arbitary, while positive discipline seeks to have a cause and effect relationship. It is allowing children to reap the consequences of their own actions.

Backtalk can be difficult to deal with sometimes. It can ruin the mood of the whole family. Finding something effective to curb it is often times a challenge. This book highlights a plan that I feel would work for most families, irregardless of their parenting philosophies. The plan takes place in four steps and makes dealing with backtalk a whole lot easier. It has been very effective in my home.

The first step is to recognize the backtalk. Some parents have trouble in this area because they think the backtalk is cute or their child is just expressing himself or something of that nature. Basically, the book says it’s backtalk if it hurts you, embarrasses you, annoys you, or leaves you feeling helpless. I would even add to that if it is spoken unkindly even if it doesn’t bother you than it’s backtalk.

The second step is choosing the right consequence. This part is difficult many times. It’s the part I struggle with and am still working on. Choosing a consequence that is effective, but appropriate stumps me sometimes. The book’s advice is that whatever activity comes next or whatever the child was wanting or supposed to do next, should be taken away. So it goes something like if the child chooses to speak unkindly, they miss out on whatever activity is planned next for the family because they have shown by not respecting family members, they don’t want to participate. A parent can say something like “when you speak to me unkindly or rudely, it makes me feel hurt and tired. It takes up my time to feel hurt and tired, and therefore, I won’t have enough energy to drive you to the mall.” The book even advocates for children missing sports practices and activities such as that. I’m not there yet with that. I understand the reasoning, it’s just hard because I feel like sports and such is a commitment and it costs money. I feel that we didn’t make the commitment and spend the money just to take it away when our child misbehaves.

The next step is enacting the consequence. The consequence should be enacted immediately and calmly. There should be no anger on the part of the parent, just matter of factly. Now, the child will undoubtedly be upset, and that’s where step four comes in.

Step four is disengaging from the struggle. Sometimes this is hard to do. Sometimes it’s easy to want to yell back at your child or insert more punishments. It’s important to refrain. Disengage by turning your back and walking away once the consequence has been enacted. This will be hard for some parents, but it’s important. If you continue the struggle with your child, it gives the child the upper hand.

The main difference between this book and the last book I reviewed Have a New Kid by Friday by Kevin Leman was that it book didn’t seem as harsh to me, the consequences seemed much more logical and reasonable, and the consequence happens immediately along with a brief explanation as to why the consequence is being enacted. Dr. Leman’s advice was to simply refrain from saying anything to your child and (sneakily in my opinion) enact some sort of consequence that the child doesn’t immediately know about. That felt too much like playing games to me, and I don’t feel that would be effective anyhow. His premise was that it should be a secret that your child shouldn’t know about. This book is much different, more straightforward, and I feel the child will feel less confusion because of it. Children need to know what’s expected of them. I appreciated this book’s ideas much more.

I’ve given the main premises of the book in this review, but it is still important to read the book. It’s a quick and easy read. There are many case stories and examples to help parents understand. There’s explanation of the philosophies presented. The book also offers encouragement to parents. I think it’s a good book for anyone dealing with this problem to read. It just may work for you too.

Have A New Kid By Friday by Dr. Kevin Leman

2010-03-15T14:28:00.004-05:00

I saw this book in our local Christian bookstore and was excited to get my hands on a copy. I should be clear for respect of my son that I do not desire a “new” kid, but I was hoping to gather some information as to how we can curb the newfound five year old backtalking syndrome. I trusted that since it was in a Christian bookstore and I’m a Christian, that it would be helpful to me. I never contemplated I may not agree with it. As I was reading, however, I started to feel a bit uncomfortable. I felt perplexed until it finally dawned on me that I just have a very different parenting philosophy than the author.

Now, I will begin by saying that if you’ve been a pushover parent and let your child get away with murder, than maybe this book is for you. For the regular rest of us, I say watch out. There were many things in this book that I disagreed with, and I will highlight a few of those areas now.

I felt the majority of this book was negative. If you’re familiar with the website we run in conjunction with this blog, you’ll know alittle bit about our parenting philosophies and if certain books measure up to them. For those who agree with our philosophies, this book will probably come off somewhat alarming. There’s not a lick of attachment parenting or positive discipline. The book works off a single notion that children are manipulative. I felt uncomfortable starting out assuming the worst of my child. Does he manipulate sometimes? Sure, but not nearly as much or in the ways the book implies. A description of the book on the back cover highlights “gutsy” advice. I don’t know if I really want my parenting to be “gutsy.” Understanding, gentle, compassionate, and close knit are the terms I am more appreciative of, but “gutsy,” well no.

The author writes with a sarcastic type wit I assume intended to be funny, however, the terms used to describe children leave a bad flavor in my mouth: “hedonistic little suckers of the ankle-biter battalion.” I have to say I grew tired of his sarcasism and negativity.

The hard part about this book is that there is reasonable advice in it. It seemed one sentence would be fine, and then the very next sentence would send me into alarm. This is why it took me quite a ways through the book to figure out that I really didn’t actually agree with him. Certainly, there are childhood behaviors that are unacceptable and must be dealt with. There are, of course, some better ways to deal with them than others. I’m not suggesting by not following his advice to let your children walk all over you, but I am recommending to be weary of some of the advice.

The way children are recommended to be treated in this book seems so harsh to me. He even warns of this. This book is not for the wuss or wimp. There are no warnings or second chances for the children.

Here’s the basics of the book:

Your child is manipulating you. This is how you should deal with it. If your child does something you don’t like, you wait until your child wants something and then you say “no.” You continue to say no until the behavior changes. It’s done calmly with no anger. You simply say no, turn your back and walk away. The author believes your child will want to know why, so he will ask you. Then there’s a teachable moment. The author also states the phrase constantly “B doesn’t happen until A is completed.” This means your child doesn’t get what they want until whatever you want gets accomplished.

Here’s an example. Say you want your child to take out the trash and they don’t want to do it? He recommends to do it yourself, don’t say anything, and then quietly dock their allowance. The problem with this method of philosophy to me is that 1) you must remember the punishment at a later date, and many parents will forget, 2) every other disciplining book I have read states that punishments or discipline need to be carried out immediately upon the unacceptable behavior or the child will have a difficult time connecting what behaviort the punishment was for. I know this from personal experience. My son doesn’t understand punishments handed out even an hour or two later. They must be immediate to make an impact.

I also feel the author’s advice is just as manipulative as the child’s supposed manipulation. I feel the way he recommends parents behave is sneaky and underhanded. Will you get your child’s attention? Sure, but will it produce the results that you want? I am very upfront with my husband and children. I address issues that I have. Everything is on the table. This is healthy communication. This way my family members always know exactly where they’re at with me. There’s no game playing.

Here’s an example:

Say your teenager (this book could agruably be geared more towards teenagers) decides one Sunday they don’t want to go to church. His advice is let them stay home since you can’t make them attend, and then go out to lunch after church, go shopping, have a grand old time, and don’t come home until hours later. He feels that if your child feels they will miss out, they’ll be ready to come the next Sunday. I feel this is problematic on so many levels. Why not first try asking your teenager why they suddenly don’t want to go? Maybe it’s something you can work on together or address and solve. I also don’t think this advice will work. What I feel like it does is further damage the parent-child relationship and alienates the teen. Then I have to ask: is it possible to raise a child that wants to go to church or wants to have good behavior or whatever without having to punish and coerce them to do it? You may be able to force them to go by assigning them extra chores if they stay home or docking their allowance or grounding them or whatever, so basically they have no choice to go or face an unpleasant alternative, but I want to know how do you raise a child so that they actually want to go to church out of their own free will and enjoy it while they are there. Now see that’s the type of advice I’m interested in: having children who do the right thing of their own accord.

You know what the answer is, don’t you? Consistency and modeling the behavior yourself. Funny, these things are mentioned numerous times in the book. Children learn most of their behaviors right in the home. If you don’t like how your child is acting, take a long, hard look at your behavior. The book readily acknowledges this fact, but fails to alter the method to suit this. What we have here with this book is just another failed attempt at truly well behaved children, filled instead with more ways to punish your children. I know from personal experience that if a child is mercilessly punished over and over, it won’t teach them to correct their behavior, but in turn, it will cause them to feel frustrated and angry. The advice in the book may work, but will it make the parents and children closer? I feel in many circumstances it won’t.

I have experienced with my son that when he backtalks or does something else I don’t care for, it’s usually because he is frustrated about something. When we talk about it and open the lines of communication, we get a lot farther than when I simply hand out punishments.

Now if the book just stopped with the main principles to have a new kid in five days, that would have been one thing. However, the author then proceeds for approximately ¾ of the entire rest of the book to give his advice, which is where the real problems begin.

“An unhappy child is a healthy child.” Do you agree with this statement? The author maintains parents work too hard to make their children happy and what the child needs is a dose of reality. How sad.

The author asserts that your child has fears because he wants you in his room with him at night. I paraphrased that a bit. If this were true, do you blame your child? It’s a nice compliment really. As a child, I was fearful of everything, almost to a paralyzing sense. My mother treated me with compassion because she understood that, to me, my fears were extremely real. In my case, it wasn’t because I wanted more of her attention, it was because I truly was scared. Fears are very normal for children because their little minds don’t yet have the complexity to understand that their fears aren’t real. In reality, even adults have some fears. Learning to control and face your fears comes with age, so treat your kids gently until they conquer their fears. Don’t kid yourself that “stepping into the room” to console your child will “lose the battle.” The author also recommends not to lie in your child’s bed or cuddle when taking your child back to be if he/she gets out of it once tucked in or “you’ll be reinforcing the behavior and violating the child’s individual space that needs to be solely hers.” What? You’ll also be missing out on one of the most special aspects of having little children.

I hate the author’s advice on bedtime battles as well. Is your child manipulating you when they ask for a drink of water after being tucked in? Sometimes yes, but what if they really are thirsty? How miserable is it to be forced to go to bed with a dry throat and not be allowed to soothe it? In our house, we consider our son’s needs and comfort. If your child continually “manipulates” for a glass of water after the bedtime routine, try making it a part of the bedtime routine and have one by the bedside. It’s a whole lot more compassionate than to simply ignore the request and denying your child some water.

Ah yes, the family bed. The author recommends against it. I’ve come to regard the family bed as being a very natural place for children to sleep as this is very common in many other cultures. An idea of children sleeping away from their parents tucked in their own rooms is a recent concept. The author believes your child “doesn’t belong there,” meaning your bed. Says who? Do what works for you. How will you get it on with little bodies between you and your spouse? Well, not in the bed, but I’m sure there are plenty of other places in the house. The bed can get boring sometimes after all.

“It takes a certain type of personality for a parent to be able to homeschool effectively (and also a certain personality of the child)…” In actuality, all it really takes is commitment and dedication through realizing how beneficial homeschooling is. While the author is respectful of homeschooling, don’t let the above quote deter you. Many people wonder if they are qualified to teach their children and doubt their abilities. The fact is most of us can and perhaps should be homeschooling our children. You’re qualified, even if you sometimes need to use outside help, resources, etc. More parents should take an active interest in their child’s schooling. It doesn’t take a special type of person as evidenced by all the many different types of people who choose to homeschool.

Here’s a bit of startling advice he recommends about interruptions. No parent likes to be interrupted, especially while on the phone. There are examples in the book of locking a child outside when they are bothering you. This advice also turns up in other areas of the book such as bedtime battles or tantrums. Not only did I find this advice ridiculous, it is damaging. Explain to your child how you want them to act while you are on the phone. It should be as simple as that. Locking your child out of the house isn’t discipline; it’s abuse. This type of behavior by a parent is described in numerous books on emotional abuse/manipulation. A teenager isn’t going to tolerate being locked out of the house, they’d probably leave the house, which is probably not the result you’re looking for, and younger children need supervision.

Now here’s the piece of the advice in the book that irritates me to no end. In a book about how to get your child to behave is the author’s recommendations for breastfeeding. That’s right, breastfeeding. What this advice is doing in a book such as this and what the author’s qualifications are to be making suggestions are beyond me. His recommendation is breastfeeding for only a year because “a year is plenty.” Excuse me? He bases this off of the consenus of the medical community, the same community that still gives out samples of formula to breastfeeding mothers in the hospital “just in case.” Do you know why they do this? Because formula manufacturers know that mothers are more likely to then quit breastfeeding and give their babies formula. It gives the subtle suggestion that women may not be enough for their babies. The medical community allows this! We as women do not have to go by everything the “medical community” states. They are not the ultimate authority. The benefits of breastfeeding do not magically vanish at one year and with the extremely poor breastfeeding rates in our country, perhaps women should start learning the truth. Our country is one of only a few that feels breastfeeding is strange past a year of age. To most of the world, it is normal. Women need to start feeling it is acceptable to breastfeed their babies for however long they feel is right for themselves and their babies. It may be different for every mother and baby pair, and they are the only ones who should be doing the deciding. I am so sick of yet another male giving his advice as to what women should do. This is not a man’s issue. When will we as women quit letting men dictate to us what is appropriate for ourselves? This disgusts me.

“If you buy your child a little chick at Easter, you’re nuts.” This advice refers to pets, in which the author gives many negative undertones in regards to them. I guess I’m nuts than because we have done chicks for Easter as well as ducks on some years. It’s a great experience for my children. It’s not hard to find a farm for these animals to live on once they are grown. My mom did this for me as a child, and it’s one of my most special memories. Pets are not a bad thing. Parents are not crazy for allowing their child to have a pet. Pets teach children about animals and how to respect them and care for them. I believe pets are a special and important part of childhood.

“Did you know an extremely shy child is an extremely powerful child? It’s actually a form of manipulation.” I don’t think so. Children have different personalities. Some talk a lot, some don’t. Some makes friends easily, some don’t. Some are very outgoing, some aren’t. I was very shy as a child. This was my temperment. It is natural, in my opinion, for there to be some shyness in children. Indeed, it can be a good thing. Most children outgrow it, though there are still many adults who have some degree of shyness. I think it is okay to be shy unless it is debilitating. I don’t see how it is manipulation.

Privacy is another issue the author addresses. He maintains that sometimes it is necessary to invade your child’s privacy for their own safety. Maybe this is true if the issue is extremely serious. However, the invasion of privacy by a parent violates the child. It violates the trust in the relationship and can be a sign of abuse. It’s a sticky situation. What I’m aiming for instead is how to raise a child to where I don’t ever have to snoop through their things because I can trust them. I knew friends as a teenager that shared everything with their parents. Now that’s success. I’m more interested in how those parents did it than about the times I may need to violate my child’s privacy. I believe this advice by the author fell under the “drug” advice. In this section, he also recommends if you suspect your child to be doing drugs, make them a doctor appointment in which a urinalysis can be performed without the child knowing drugs are being checked for. That way you will know. Of course, you just deceived your child and broke their trust. What you did was just manipulate your child. It was underhanded, your child will feel that way, and it probably will make them want to share things even less. Why not instead explore what may be going on with the child using drugs. Many times that pain the child is trying to escape starts at home.

I could go on and on all day. I’ll stop here though. Having a “New” kid by Friday is not only unrealistic, it’s deceptive. The principles and behaviors and morals you want to instill into your child take years, not five days. Having a close, loving, open, and good relationship with your children cannot be achieved in only five days. If something sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. Love your kids and be thankful for the ones you got. Read with caution or better yet, leave this one on the shelf.

What Kindergarten Teachers Know By Lisa Holewa and Joan Rice

2010-03-11T23:30:00.000-06:00

I started homeschooling my son last fall. Since I am new to this, I figured why not learn the secrets of teachers who have come before me. This book is a quick read, which is nice for a busy homeschooling parent.

I found this book to be so-so. For the most part, I was unimpressed. I didn’t feel as though I was learning anything new until I got to the chapter about “play.” Then, my opinion changed. This chapter really spoke to me. The authors opened my eyes as to truly how important play is to a child, that it is a child’s “work” in a sense. It is the basic human right of every child. Being so enthusiastic about homeschooling at present, I tend to try to find something to teach my son in every opportunity. While my son and I have a lot of fun, the book warns against making every moment a learning opportunity. Play is how children learn new things, and it is precisely unstructured, unhindered play that they need. In a way, this is very relieving to me. I don’t have to be so caught up in making sure he is learning something because if he is playing, he is learning.

Another tidbit I took away from the book was the idea that children need things to be silly and fun. This is, of course, something that I knew, but adult responsibilities can pile up really fast, so if I’m not careful, it’s easy to forget. The book has tons of ideas on how to do this, and while most of the ideas, I will probably never actually use in real life, I recognize that other families might. One thing we did do in my house is this: my son has this little toy shark that he likes. One day, the shark just took on a personality (through me making him talk, of course). Now, he joins us for homeschool everyday, and my son finds him hilarious. Before reading this book, I would have considered the shark a distraction. Now, I see that my son actually pays better attention when the shark is present and talking to him. Silly to me, but it works.

I also realized from the book that my son is now at an age where he can become more involved in his play. His imaginary games are more involved and last longer. Sometimes, he comes to me whining and bored, and I now know how to give him some direction. There is all types of games listed in the book, but here’s an example of what we did in our house, just yesterday: normally my son would play freely, but he was having trouble figuring out what to do. I suggested he play “restaurant”. He got every stuffed animal out, situated them at his restaurant, got them menus, and served them food. He played this game for several hours. I directed his play a bit, and it worked beautifully.

The last part I enjoyed is the last sentence in which I’ll just quote: “I had two essentials every day when I wlked out the door:Are my kids happy? And Did they learn something worthwhile? But most of all, I wanted them to know they were loved- that they were loved, and that they could trust me.” I really identified with this.

In the end, not everything in this book resonated with me, but there were some very important things that did. This book is cheerful and upbeat. It’s worth a try.

The NDD Book by William Sears, MD

2010-03-02T13:21:00.000-06:00

I was pleased with this book, much more so than I thought I would be. I wasn’t sure what to expect from a children’s nutrition book written by a physician because most physicians are severely lacking in their understanding of good nutrition, and there is lots of nutrition misinformation out there. It was refreshing, however, to read a book by a physician that actually has a decent understanding of nutrition.

This book should be required reading for all parents, school administrators, physicians, etc. The nutritional concepts in the book are very basic and easy to understand, but still nutritionally sound. To me, the information seems so common sense, but I realize for many parents, this book could be an eye opener for them or a very first interaction in thinking about their child’s nutrition. NDD stands for Nutrition Deficit Disorder, in which the author maintains is what many of the children with ADD, allergies, and asthma, etc. are actually suffering from.

The state of health of our nation’s children is alarming. It is estimated this could be the first generation that may actually not outlive their parents. Diseases that were once thought of as only adult diseases are showing up in children at alarming rates. Children should not be obese or have diabetes. Mainstream wisdom usually lacks a connection between disease and nutrition, but what we eat is, in my opinion, the main contributing factor in health. The saying “we are what we eat” is actually very true for a number of reasons. It’s simple really. Give the body what it needs to function correctly such as vitamins and proper nutrients, and the body will actually function correctly.

There were many points about this book that I enjoyed. The book starts out with some alarming statistics: 1 in 3 children will eventually get diabetes, the number of preschoolers now receiving mood altering drugs has tripled, the number of Ritalin prescriptions for 2-4 year olds has tripled, obesity severe enough to disable a child has increased 40%. There are many more. These are terrifying. Clearly, it’s the way we are living. This book sets out to show the relationship between food and good health, and I feel it does a superb job at doing so.

The author discusses which foods are bad, and more importantly, why they are bad and the relationship between bad foods and bad health. The author also explains which foods are good and how they help the body function correctly. There is some technical explanation as to how bad foods put a body out of balance, but it is written in such a way that everyone can understand.

The book is also filled with recipes and loads of ways to make eating healthy food fun for kids.
The only criticism I have of this book is the fact that tofu is mentioned numerous times as a healthy food that children should be fed. Most hard core health experts recognize the fact that tofu is, in fact, simply more processed crap. There are lots of problems with processed soy such as tofu, and as a vegetarian, I still wouldn’t touch that stuff. I was a little disappointed tofu was toted as a health food by the book. I also would have liked to see more discussion on alternative diets for children, such as vegetarianism, but none were addressed.

For the most part, this book is nutritionally sound and congruent with the many other books on nutrition I have read. I appreciate the acknowledgment that children should be fed regular healthy foods, not “kid foods”, and I hope this book will make an impact on the future health of our children.

The House That Cleans Itself By Mindy Starns Clark

2010-02-25T15:11:00.000-06:00

This was an interesting book. I haven’t ever read a book on housekeeping before this one. The title is catchy. It perked my interest. Who wouldn’t want a house that cleans itself? I do not have a problem with housekeeping. I love it, and I’m good at it. My husband on the other hand isn’t quite as gifted in this area, and therefore, I read this book to better understand where he’s coming from. I realized from this book that there are some people who are sincerely housekeeping impaired. It’s not that they don’t have the best of intentions. It’s not that they don’t try hard. They just aren’t good at it. What seems so obvious to me at times, baffles my husband. I believe in just getting things done and keeping order, but I now realize, this isn’t so easy for other people.

There were many things that stood out to me in this book. The author uses the motto “There’s a place for everything and everything in its place.” It’s a great one, and if truly utilized, it does keep a clean house. The backbone, however, of the author’s House That Cleans Itself strategy is to change the house to fit the behavior as much as possible and then change the behavior. She maintains that if it was possible for housekeeping impaired people to change their behavior to magically become competent, this would have happened already. Therefore, it is easier to change the house as much as possible to make it easier. This makes sense to me because this is probably what organized people do innately. What follows in the book is a plethora of ideas on how to do this. In a sense, this book is about getting a house as organized as possible, so that it can more easily stay clean.

I enjoyed many of the little housekeeping tips, such as using a lint roller to clean a lampshade amongst many others. Little tricks like that make cleaning so much easier. She also gives pointers on what furniture to buy or how to redo a kitchen or thoughts on purchasing carpet. All these things play a roll in how much cleaning is necessary. Some types of flooring hide dirt. Some types of furniture hide dust, while others show all the dust. Some surfaces show fingerprints, while others don’t. A house can either be functional or it can make cleaning so much harder than it needs to be.

One of the greatest points this book makes is in regards to the length of time it takes to clean things. The author states that people who aren’t very efficient with cleaning often over estimate the time it takes to clean things. This describes my husband perfectly. He can spend a whole day working at something, feel exhausted when he’s done, and yet not actually accomplish cleaning it. I’m not talking about deep, once a year cleaning either. I mean something as simple as cleaning the kitchen. This is something I utterly do not understand, and continually have to work on accepting of him, but this part of the book helped me make sense of what is going on. She lists times for how long it should take to clean certain things and also encourages readers to time themselves doing things to give a little perspective. She also emphasizes the need to learn how to quick clean and how also to clean and straighten little things in stolen little moments such as while waiting to tuck the kids in at night while they get ready or while waiting for the water on the stove to boil, etc. There’s always an opportunity to do a little something that helps maintain the home. Then there is not as often of a need to take hours at a time to clean something because it, for the most part, stays clean. This seems so obvious to those of us who are good at housekeeping, but I suppose others need to learn this. Some people see the mess and just automatically know how to clean it, while others just don’t have any idea where to start.

One last thing I’d like to mention that was vitally important for the book to point out was about the emotion of housekeeping. Cleaning shouldn’t be emotional. It’s just something that has to be done. There should be no emotion tied to it. If someone is struggling with either despising or craving cleaning, then it is time to examine why. I wish the book went a little more into detail on this topic, but at least, it was touched upon. A light bulb went off in my head when I read this. Cleaning is very emotional for my husband, and we are working to figure out why. Contrasted with me, I just do it with little thought about it. This was a great revelation for us.

There were only a few things I had trouble relating to the author on. The author has a little too many organizational tricks that I found some of them a bit ridiculous. If they work for some people, then great, but I thought they put in more effort and work than would actually be helpful. For example, every Sunday after church, the author has a special clothes bag in her closet complete with a shoe holder in which she places next week’s outfit, finished off with jewelry and shoes that she can’t touch all week, so she is ready and on time for church the following week. As someone who is already organized, this seems like way too much work to me. I can’t imagine someone who isn’t organized would be able to stick with that. I would rather stick to a laundry schedule so that at least one church outfit is clean. I’d rather keep all my shoes lined in one place in my closet so I can grab the ones I need in a hurry. Same with my jewelry. If you have so much jewelry or shoes that you can’t keep them organized, time to get rid of some. This would be easier and makes more sense to me. The author seems to give this type of advice a lot in this book. She gets really creative with her ideas for things, but many of them would create more work for me. She’s very big into creating stations. They even have a whole closet in her house devoted just to traveling. They keep their suitcases, maps, and everything they need in one closet. I can’t fathom having enough room to devote a whole closet for that no matter how big my house is. The logic of the way she organizes some things seems illogical to me. I like specific things to go in each room, such as the kitchen is for my dishes and cooking utensils, not the things I’ll need to mail thank you notes, even if I do like to sit at the kitchen table to write them. The author seems to feel that in her case if her utensils for correspondence are not right at her fingertips, she’ll neglect to do it. Maybe so, but I would feel totally crazy and unorganized if I followed all her advice in the book in the way of organizing. So many things just felt totally out of place to me as I read her describing everything.

All in all, a lot of the advice in this book is sound and I can verify that people who are naturally organized and like to clean do most of this advice naturally. But if some people need to have these things pointed out to them so they can become better at housekeeping, then I think this book is wonderful. My husband is reading this book next. We’ll see how it goes.

The Crazy Makers by Carol Simontacchi

2010-01-24T12:00:00.000-06:00

This book was fantastic! The name doesn’t exactly reveal what this book is actually about, but it is titled appropriately. This book is about nutrition and how severely lacking the American diet is of basic nutrition. We eat more than anyone else in the world in our lifetimes, yet we are literally starving ourselves to death. Our food is so devoid of nutrients that our bodies are not getting the things they need.

What I was particularly fascinated by with this book compared to other nutrition books I have read is the author’s discussion of how the food we eat affects our brains. The information contained in this book is truthfully life-changing. The author clearly shows how our food is damaging our brains. The brain damage is subtle in many cases, though the affects can often be seen. The problem is our awareness though. The fear is that some of our brains may be too damaged to actually know they’re damaged! It’s the perfect concept really, if you’re the food manufacturers that want to get people to get buying and eating your crap. Damage their brains, so they don’t know any better. I’m sure you’ll find this discussion quite fascinating, that is if you’re brain isn’t too damaged yet.

There are so many good points and good discussions regarding nutrition in this book that I can’t even begin to elaborate on all of them. The author takes each age group from small children, older children, teens, and even adults and explains the nutritional downfalls for each group and also the body’s requirements for each age group. There is also discussion on nutrients, vitamins, why they are important and what each of them does.

A large section of the book is also devoted to recipes to help you on your way to healthier eating. Bon appétit!

The No Cry Nap Solution by Elizabeth Pantley

2010-01-08T17:12:00.000-06:00

This book does not disappoint. I am a fan of Elizabeth Pantley. Her writing makes sense to me on many levels, so I can easily recommend this book for anyone struggling with naptimes. This book offers so many suggestions and outlines many different solutions to naptime problems. As any parent knows, children come with their own personalities, so a book with only one way of doing things wouldn’t suffice.

I trust Elizabeth Pantley’s advice. This is because it has worked well for my family, and it respects my inability to allow my child to cry without being comforted. There were many things I like about this book. There is great explanation in this book about sleep cycles of babies. Parents don’t automatically know exactly what to expect in terms of sleep with their babies at first, so understanding how a baby’s sleep cycles differ from adults can often be important. There is information in the book with various guidelines of how much sleep a baby should be getting at each stage of development. Infant sleep cycles are explained in easy to understand detail, which assists in understanding how to help babies nap better.

One part of the book that I particularly enjoyed was understanding the benefits of sleep for a baby and why naps are so important. The timing of naps is also critical according to the book. Pantley describes “the Volcano Effect” which is used to describe what happens when child’s naps are missed. The best piece of advice in the book that I personally related to was the idea of “a baby’s second wind.” It is stressed in the book to put baby to sleep as soon as tired signs are noticed. If naptime is delayed even 15 minutes after tired signs are noticed, a baby can get a second wind and actually not be tired. It is harder to put a baby to sleep when they are overtired or have gotten a second wind. There is also information on recognizing your baby’s tired signs. One other aspect that I could also relate to was five to fifteen minute catnaps babies tend to take during car rides. We used to try and keep my son awake in the car at all costs or he would not nap for us. It was interesting to learn why from this book and also how to help prevent short cat naps from preventing real naps.

There is really advice for every kind of nap problem contained in this book. If you’re having trouble with your baby not napping long enough, only napping in your arms, has colic or special needs, will only fall asleep with a bottle, breast, or pacifier, and these things are not working for you, then this book will help you make changes necessary to make naps work for you and your baby. I love how sensitive the author seems to be in regards to individual family needs. You’ll also find advice on creating pre-nap routines, how night sleep and nap sleep affect one another, and a whole host of other information.

Be aware though that this book isn’t just a read straight through, never look at again, book. Read it and then use it to analyze what might be happening in your situation so that changes can actually be made. It has great advice, but isn’t necessarily a quick fix. These things take time if they are to be done sensitively because babies often have minds of their own.

There are not quite as many charts and things to use in this book than there was in some of the other Pantley No Cry books. Some people like charts, some don’t. I also must admit that I liked Elizabeth Pantley’s No Cry Sleep Solution a little better than this book. I felt it offered a little more advice and suggestions than this book, so that remains my top pick. This book, however, is addressed specifically to naps, so I believe many parents will still find its information useful.

If you’re having nap trouble, this is the book to get. I highly recommend it!

Green Babies, Sage Moms By Lynda Fassa

2009-12-20T20:05:00.001-06:00

This was a fairly good book. It’s a quick and entertaining read, packed with lots of great information. This book is mainly written for pregnant women. I wasn’t expecting this when I went to read it and was a little surprised there was so much reference in the book to this fact. This book would be good for anyone to read, not just pregnant women.

The number one thing I loved about this book is the recognition of chemicals and how they are affecting our lives. This author really gets it, and numerous examples are given on how to cut out chemicals for the well being of ourselves and our children. Everything from pesticides sprayed on lawns to our food to the chemicals in cosmetics. I was impressed by the author’s depth of knowledge in recognizing all these chemicals. The author runs her own company of organic cotton babies clothes, which brings to light the issue of pesticides we and our babies breathe in when we are wearing cotton. Another thing I really liked that the author was smart to add in this book is about diapering services. Some people feel a diapering service is the way to go when they want to cloth diaper. Cloth diapering is a step ahead of the rest, but a diaper service isn’t the way to go. The diapers must be washed in bleach. Not good for baby or the environment.

A chapter that I absolutely loved in this book is the chapter on beauty care. There are recipes to make your own highlights without chemicals as well as treatments for cracked heels and everything in between. The bottom line is that beauty doesn’t have to be sacrificed when chemicals are removed from the equation. On the contrary, removing chemicals can enhance beauty and health. We can still pamper ourselves with natural remedies that are inexpensive and easy to make without the need to slather harmful chemicals all over our bodies. You will love this chapter.

One more aspect about this book that I absolutely adored was the discussion on vegetarianism. One of the best ways a person can contribute to making a difference on this Earth is to become a vegetarian. It is so much more economical. I’ve heard that we could eliminate hunger if everyone became a vegetarian. This is because the animals that we use for food need to be fed, well, food, and that contributes to hunger of other people. Conventional animals used for food are also severely mistreated and malnourished. There are many problems with the eating of meat, and I’m proud to say that I am a vegetarian. I loved how the book recognized that it is also perfectly safe for children to be raised as vegetarians as well. The number one question I get asked as a vegetarian is if I ever miss meat, so I’ll just answer that for anyone wondering: No, I have not ever once missed meat. I just don’t. Period. I actually feel relieved to not eat meat. Enough said on that!

Some of the downsides to this book. There seems to be a recognition of the harmfulness of vaccines and the toxins contained in vaccines, yet I still got the impression the author is in support of them. I do not support any vaccines as they are toxic chemicals that cannot produce health. I felt this was a bit hypocritical of the book. For more information on why vaccines are harmful, please visit our website at www.theholisticparent.org/vaccinations.

The book also makes many references to global warming. I know many people deeply believe in global warming. My opinion differs slightly, however. Since the purpose of this review is not to debate global warming, I’ll keep my comments minimal. Here’s my take though. We’ve only been recording temperature for a very short time in the history of the Earth. For as many people that believe in global warming, there’s just as many that believe the Earth is cooling. There seems to be “good” science on both sides of the argument. I personally feel we haven’t been recording temperature long enough in the Earth’s history to be able to determine what the temperatures are doing. It’s arrogance on the part of humans to believe we can know for sure. The truth is that the Earth goes through natural cooling and warming phases. With that being said, I do feel we should still be good stewards of this place we call home. We are faced with many other issues, a huge one being pollution.

Before I start to sound too picky about a book that I actually liked overall, I would also like to add that I didn’t feel all the advice in the nutrition section was that wonderful. There were some things mentioned that really aren’t all the great for a baby to eat, such as cheese or white potatoes. That’s my personal opinion based on the research I’ve done. Much of that chapter was also focused on easy ways to feed a baby food. It mentioned companies that have frozen foods and such that you can buy to give your baby. It talks a lot about cooked food for babies. Uncooked food holds so much more nutrition. I was just a little disappointed with this chapter because there was no mention of simply using a hand blender to make baby food. We would take all kinds of raw fruits and veggies, stick them in a little bowl, and use a hand blender on them for about two minutes. That’s the best nutrition for baby if the produce is organic, fresh, and uncooked. Our baby had no trouble at all eating it.

Overall, this book is a fun read. There is plenty of helpful advice, just don’t make it your only source. Most of the advice is sound, but use good judgment. There are many topics that are covered in this book, but none are covered in too much depth, so consulting other sources is always a good idea.

Knockout By Suzanne Somers

2009-12-14T17:53:00.002-06:00

If you thought cancer can’t be cured… think again. This book is phenomenal. I personally feel it is long overdue. A cancer diagnosis is something most everyone fears. It is a most dreadful time in life. You’re vulnerable. This is when the system takes advantage of you. People need choices. People need alternatives. It is about survival. The statistics of who will get cancer in their lifetimes are astounding. So, where do we turn? What do we do?

We start by reading this book. Suzanne Somers does a phenomenal job once again bringing important information to light. Contained within this book are interviews from some of the foremost thinking, ahead of our time physicians. These physicians were trained as every other medical doctor in this country. They were taught the same things, went to the same schools. The ability these physicians possess, however, is the ability to recognize a problem and think outside the box for the solution. It is stated in the book by almost every physician that they were experiencing issues of disappointment at their patients not getting better. They noticed that the allopathic medical approach must be severely lacking in something because the survival rate of patients inflicted with cancer is dismal.

I was amazed by the insight, knowledge, and brilliance of these doctors. I am grateful for their wisdom and endurance. Many of these physicians have been persecuted, demoralized, and laughed at, but the one thing they have that many conventional oncologists don’t is patients who are getting better. This is what keeps these doctors going. Their very lives are at peril at times. There are groups who don’t want this information out there because after all, cancer is a multibillion dollar business.

An aspect of the book that I truly enjoyed was the point of finding a cure. By cure what conventional medicine really means is some new drug. When will they ever realize the body must be treated as a whole because that is how it operates; a whole. The body can heal itself. Cancer is no different. The truth is cancer cures exist. It will be a battle to have this knowledge widespread, however. Think of all the money that goes towards finding a “cure.” Buy this pink ribbon item, race for this cause, all in the name to find a cure. Lots of money. And do you know where that money goes? Right to the drug companies! Drug companies that already charge an arm and a leg for their toxic chemotherapeutic drugs. As if cancer victims aren’t already taken enough advantage of.

Now on to the subject of chemotherapy, which this book does an amazing job explaining. The stance of the book is if you’re going to go the chemotherapy route; fine. There’s even a whole chapter devoted to how to build up your body and immune system if you feel most comfortable going that route. A patient has to believe in their treatment to get better; a topic also widely covered in this book. If you do choose chemotherapy, then know this; chemotherapy drugs are toxic substances designed to poison the body in an effort to kill the cancer cells. It’s like poisoning the cancer out of the body. It harms healthy cells as well as cancerous ones. It doesn’t put the body in proper balance nor does it create health. This is why people deserve to know the truth. People deserve a choice. Cancer is not a random affliction as is a common myth. It’s not just a luck of the draw, something you can’t help. Cancer can even be prevented. Oh yes, it can! The book covers this in tremendous detail as well. So the point is, if one happens to “get” cancer, they probably weren’t living as healthfully as they should have been. There is most certainly room for improvement so to speak, and the first thing to do would be to build up the body, build up the immune system, not tear it down with more toxins. We know many toxins that actually cause cancer. This is one of the many reasons patients don’t get well with chemotherapy, radiation, or surgery. All these things cause the body to be so sick and out of balance that there’s nothing left for the body to use to fight off the cancerous cells.

One astounding piece of research the books uncovers is the fact that cancer can actually be spread by the surgery utilized to remove a tumor. The thought is to cut out a tumor so there will be no more cancer in the body. It seems when we mess with nature, however, bad things start to happen. Cutting out a tumor is such an outside-in approach. It doesn’t cure anything. It doesn’t cause the conditions in which the cancer was allowed to develop in the first place to be corrected. Now, we come to find it can even cause the cancer to metastasize! Incredible.

There is so much insight in this book on everything pertaining to cancer. I loved all the tidbits of information as each doctor shared their knowledge. There’s so much about nutrition, detoxification, and health in general. I feel this should be a read for everyone, but undoubtedly an essential for someone who has cancer. It just might save your life.

Breakthrough By Suzanne Somers

2009-11-27T20:47:00.002-06:00

Breakthrough is an amazing book. The best thing I can say about Suzanne Somers is that she gets it. She just gets it. I believe Breakthrough should be on every person’s reading list. It’s an essential read. It doesn’t have to do with parenting, but it does have to do with health, which is important for every parent.

Somers comes from the perspective of anti-aging. She calls this “new” medicine breakthrough medicine or anti-aging medicine. Really though, it’s information for everyone even if we’re not yet worried about aging. There are things in this book that will challenge your previously held beliefs and blow your mind.

In this book, Somers interviews various doctors in the field of cutting edge medicine. From these doctors, we learn tons of tips and tidbits on how to stay healthy as well as information on lots of latest technologies. Some of the things explained in this book are stem cells and what they actually do, and nanotechnology which aids in detoxification, weight loss, allergy reduction, energy flows, sleep, and more. Finish this book out until the end because these things are discussed last.

Somers also promotes “8 Steps to Wellness” which are basically the essentials to health. Some of these essentials are nutrition, limitation of toxins, proper sleep, exercise, and limiting pharmaceuticals. Again, Somers is a gal who just gets it. I personally enjoyed Somers’ numerous references to what a drugged society we are. Our dependence on pharmaceuticals is killing us, yet it’s a rare person indeed to actually have the knowledge base to understand this assertion.

There is so much information contained in this book truly making it worth everyone’s time. There is lots of reference of ways to cure illness naturally. This book is also very heavily explanative of bioidentical hormone replacement. Many people don’t understand hormone replacement. It must be an exact replica of what the body makes naturally, and it’s something everyone needs to address at some point in their lives if they want to go on living well into their aging years. Some people as young as their thirties need to start thinking about this topic. Typical hormone replacement with synthetic hormones promotes cancer and illness, but this book is referring to something different. There is great information contained within these pages.

The absolute best breakthrough Somers covers is a new technology called Lifewave. Lifewave makes patches that can increase energy, promote weight loss, eliminate pain, improve the quality of sleep, detoxify the body, and slow aging. These patches are a new technology that works via energy. Nothing enters the skin. I have tried the patches myself and loved them so much that I signed up to be a distributor. If you want to learn more about these patches, visit my website about them. www.lifewaveblitz.com. If you want to buy the patches from the Lifewave website directly, go to www.lifewave.com/lifewaveblitz. My distributor ID number is 727136.

Somers never ceases to inform and educate in a compassionate and inspiring way. She reaches out to empower women and men to take their health into their own hands through education. She’s down to earth and her writing is easy to read. She offers hope through a different path. Read this book. You won’t be sorry you did.

The Duggars: 20 and Counting By Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar

2009-11-02T11:45:00.002-06:00

I loved this book. Since our website is primarily about parenting, I thought why not find our how one of America's largest families operates. I have to admit: I am thoroughly impressed. If one thing is for certain, these parents have it together. It really irks me when someone judges the Duggars when they really don't know them. I know they have a lot of children, and some people have a problem with that. I know it's not the conventional way to live, but nothing about our website is "conventional," so this book is quite fitting. The Duggars are also very conservative. They're criticized about it often, but the truth is, they are raising their children with excellent values. Many of these values are addressed in the book, and readers will get a sense of why the Duggars believe what they do. I would even venture to guess they're the morals and values most parents would like to instill in their children.

The Duggars are religious. I know this bothers some people as well, however, I pose a suggestion. Read the book and then see if you have a different perspective of the Duggars. I was amazed at how blessed their lives are from the decisions that they have made. They feel the Lord has guided these decisions. Other people may feel differently, but there is no denying that they have made very good choices in many areas of their lives. I truly enjoyed hearing their personal testimonies. I personally felt quite intrigued by the way situations, especially regarding finances, seem to have fallen in place in their lives. Could be coincidence, though I feel the reader may be swayed from this opinion when reading the book. There's several areas about this book I would like to address.

The first would be the issue of having so many children. How do they give them all attention? Well, the book answers these questions and more. The children are homeschooled, which allows for more time to spend together. Both parents are home much of the day. Through the book, the Duggars clearly portray how each child does receive attention. I think it's important to remember with a large family, there is always someone to talk to, and it's probably pretty hard to be lonely or isolated. Large families are becoming less common these days, but in our not so distant past, larger families were much more normal. The truth is that you have to make an effort to be connected to your children no matter how many kids you have. This doesn't just happen, it takes work to stay connected, even if you have only one child. Parents of many children can be connected to those children as much as someone who only has one child. Conversely, parents of one child can be detached or disconnected. It's about the effort you put in.

How do they handle so many children? Do the older children "raise" the younger children? This thinking always bothers me as well. Yes, the older children do help the younger children... and the younger children are also expected to help as they can. The fact is in their family everyone helps each other, which is the way families are supposed to behave. No, the older children are not responsible for raising their younger siblings, and as the reader will see through the book, each child is invested in as a valuable human being. The older children will testify that they do not feel burdened by having a large family- the children love it. Who wouldn't want to grow up in a loving family with ever present playmates. As an only child, I can attest it can be lonely often, and I would have loved brothers and sisters. How many children is too many? A silly question indeed since it is different for every person. The truth is that these parents have been blessed with a large amount of children, and they handle it extremely well as one can clearly gather from the book.

How do they afford so many children? This is the area that truly blows me away. The way the Duggars have managed their finances is amazing. They decided in the very beginning of their marriage they would not accumulate any debt. This is obviously very contrary to popular culture. They still live today in a 7,000 sq foot home with no debt whatsoever. How many of us can say that? They go to bed at night owning their home with nothing hanging over their heads. It was very interesting to see how their needs have been provided for without accumulating debt. I am truly fascinated. We could all take a lesson in their resourcefulness. The Duggars are very candid about many of their finances to paint the reader a detailed picture of exactly how they are able to stay debt free and still afford life. They also set the record straight that they have never been on any public assistance of any kind. Bravo

The book is littered with family recipes. The Duggars answer burning questions and share many wonderful tidbits on their lives. There is information on how they stay organized and how they get everything done. It is so interesting to learn how they do what they do.

The book also gives lots of homeschooling resources and advice, which I especially appreciated.

I truly enjoyed this book. For those who want to stand by and be critical or judge from a far without knowing anything about the Duggars, well that's just fine. But you'll be missing out. I learned a lot from reading this book, and I hope that perhaps you'll allow them to teach you something too.

First Things First By Kurt and Brenda Warner

2009-10-31T09:31:00.002-05:00

I really enjoyed this book. I know it's not necessarily the typical kind of book I would read for this blog, but it was worth my time. What I appreciated most about this book was the authors honesty. They share a great deal from their personal lives in order that the reader may benefit. I really enjoy that in an author.

An aspect of the book that was valuable to read how much the authors make an effort to be a close knit family. Without so much using the terms attachment parenting or holistic, one thing is certain however: they understand the importance of being connected. I feel that if you're not connected to your family, then what is life's purpose? My own beliefs echo the authors' in that family will be the people that are there for you constantly and always have your back. The authors offer practical tips throughout the book that describe the ways in which they maintain a closeness in their large family. I loved the advice they offer; my favorite being if your children cannot get along, they must hold hands for ten minutes. If they can't get along then, they must sit cheek to cheek. Then they say jokingly (or maybe not so jokingly) if you can't get along cheek to cheek, then it's lips to lips! Clearly, there's plenty of humor in this book as well.

The authors demonstrate in many ways the importance of giving back and blessing others. They do this in numerous ways, and explain the importance of teaching this to children. I found many of their tips very practical.

For those who don't know who Kurt and Brenda are... Kurt Warner is a quarterback in the NFL currently playing for the Arizona Cardinals. Prior to that, he played for the Saint Louis Rams. He has been named MVP and won a Superbowl amongst many other wonderful accomplishments. His wife, Brenda's story is perhaps even more interesting, and there story together is very moving. I believe it's interesting to see where life can take a person and how that person can be blessed if their priorities are straight. It's wonderful to see the humility the Warner's exhibit in light of all their blessings, and the gratitude they feel. I feel there are lessons in the book everyone can benefit from.

Give this book a shot. It's interesting, very easy to read, and has a good deal of practicality. Thumbs up.

What if Medicine Disappeared? By Gerald E Markle and Frances B McCrea

2009-10-28T11:38:00.002-05:00

This is an excellent book. The two authors are sociologists who pose the thought experiment What If Medicine Disappeared. Their conclusions will astound most people, however, the book is well referenced. I believe this book should be read by everyone. It highlights the problems within our conventional medical system better than any book I have read thus far. There are lots of great points in this book. I literally found dozens of sentences I wanted to quote that were written so stupendously. I have, however, narrowed it down to a more reasonable number.

This book does a terrific job of explaining the medical model of care. There are six key points summarized in the book, but the basic concept of the medical model is the assumption that health is simply the absence of disease. The book points out “health” is not truly defined by the medical model, but it becomes quite clear, health is much more than just the absence of disease. You can be “well,” meaning you are not exhibiting symptoms of disease, and still not be healthy. Through this point, the book adequately demonstrates the faulty logic the entire medical model is based upon.

Now here’s a part of the book I love. The authors focus the basis of the book on modern medicine’s effect on mortality. They throw out some sobering statistics. We spend roughly $1.4 trillion annually on healthcare. Yet, are we healthier because of it? Let’s take a look. Adding up all the healthcare professionals in our country from physicians to nurse to pharmacists, we have over 4 million. People think medications are safe because they’ve been approved by the FDA, and of course, a lot of research is put in by the pharmaceutical companies to make the medication as safe as possible, right? Well no. Each year, there are over 100,000 deaths from properly prescribed medication. IT’S THE 5TH LEADING CAUSE OF DEATH IN THE UNITED STATES! Doesn’t that number shock you? Personally, I wouldn’t want to be one of the 100,000. Fascinatingly, more people die from properly prescribed medication than every possible accident combined! The statistics keep getting better. Do you want to know the sixth leading cause of death, according to the book? Nosocomial infections. This means infections acquired from going to the hospital! Nosocomial infections kill more than 88,000 people a year. 88,000 deaths could potentially be avoided by not going to the hospital. Amazing. The inappropriate administration of medication or other medical errors kills somewhere in between 44,000 to 88,000 people each year. Yet another reason to stay out of the hospital. This book has many more great statistics as well as the costs of all this “care.” I’ll move on though.

Now from all this death in the above statistics, one would have to imagine that the medical model does some good, right? I mean it saves people’s lives. It’s heroic. Otherwise, what is it there for? The book demonstrates that in some cases, sure lives are saved, but the overall effect on mortality is pitiful. The authors sufficiently show the effects of screenings barely have any effect on mortality whatsoever. Breast cancer and prostate cancer screenings may do more harm than good. There are issues with false positives and false negatives. Basically, screening exams are not prevention. The medical model believes catching a disease early from screening is prevention, but really it’s only a detection. It’s not preventing the disease in the first place. The problem is modern medicine is always one step behind. The disease or more correctly, the symptoms of disease are treated. Wouldn’t it be more efficient to not get the disease in the first place? That’s true prevention.

The book also makes points on how the medical establishment rarely critiques or evaluates its own practices. Many of the practices do not stand up to scientific rigor. If a scientific study contradicts current medical practice, it is discredited or ignored completely in many cases. You’ll learn about this practice more in the book.

There are also points made on the relationship between the patient and the physician, medical competence, brainwashing, physicians blaming patients for pressuring them into prescribing antibiotics (you’ll love reading this part), and much more. The book looks at each area of medicine from psychiatry to surgery to general medicine. It is thorough if nothing else.

One aspect I found curious however, was the authors lack of evaluating of the Pap smear exam. Their conclusion was that Pap smears are always beneficial. I have to disagree. The practice is controversial, and that is an important point for people to know. Can it be beneficial in some circumstances? Possibly, but it is controversial for a number of reasons out of the scope of this review.

I have to say my most favorite part of the entire book is the very last sentence in which the authors make their conclusion. They begin the paragraph by asking who profits from our illnesses, who spends money to make us well, and who profits from us being healthy? I love their conclusion, but you’ll have to read the book to find it out. (You wouldn’t want me to give away the best part, would you?)

You’ll love this book. A highly enjoyable read!

The Attachment Parenting Book by William Sears M.D. and Martha Sears R. N.

2009-10-15T10:49:00.000-05:00

This is a fantastic book. It is so fantastic that I would recommend it to every parent. This book is packed with important and useful information. It is like a breath of fresh air. This book appears short, but I assure you it isn’t. It takes a bit of time to read. There is some repetitious parts in the book, which make for some dry reading, but overall, this book is incredibly informative.

I believe parents who read this book will immediately recognize the concepts outlined in this book as the most natural, instinctual way to parent a child. What I love about this book is that it clearly educates the reader on the needs of a baby, specifically in regards to a baby’s attachment. Many parents may attest that they don’t actually know what their baby needs at times- that they’re at a loss. Attachment parenting is about knowing your baby so well because you work to maintain that connection that you’re rarely at a loss for what baby needs. You’re able to do this because you know your baby. Also explained in this book are baby’s need for attachment. Baby’s most basic need is a secure attachment with caregivers. This is how baby learns to trust.

I personally believe we live in a culture where it is very easy to become detached from our babies. Many mothers must work full time. We are a society where bottle feeding is prevalent. Many babies sleep in a crib alone at night and during the day rock in a swing or some other contraption. I’m not criticizing these behaviors, but they are examples of how it is easily possible to lose connection with a baby. To be attached, time must be spent with one another and baby’s needs must be met. The Attachment Parenting book outlines situations that can happen when baby isn’t attached or baby’s needs are not met. The book also states that if baby is not attached, it is hard to get that attachment back as baby grows older. The authors state you’ll feel as though you’re always playing catch up with your child or may risk never really knowing your child. Attachment difficulties can take years to fix.

Another great aspect of this book is the beware of baby trainer advice. I must admit if one does not know or understand the theory of attachment, there are times when training your baby may seem like a good idea. What parent doesn’t want to have a baby that doesn’t trouble them, sleeps all night, doesn’t need much? It seems great on the surface. The risk though is baby becoming complacent and detached. On the surface, baby seems fine, but really detrimental things may be happening to baby on the inside. Baby training is associated closely with failure to thrive infants.

In this book, you’ll also learn about the other baby B’s of AP: birth bonding, breastfeeding, babywearing, bedding close to baby, belief in baby’s cry, and balance and boundaries.

Attachment parenting is a gentle instinctual way to parent a child. There isn’t a big laundry list of do’s and don’ts. It’s just a natural way of caring for a child. Children who are securely attached turn into bright, caring, sensitive, and secure individuals. They are typically independent and highly functioning. The effort put into this style of parenting is certainly worth it.

Ina May's Guide to Breastfeeding by Ina May Gaskin

2009-10-09T12:23:00.001-05:00

Mrs. Gaskin does it again. This book is fabulous. In classic Ina May style, this book provides a wealth of information. What I particularly enjoyed from this book was the diversity of information presented. Sometimes breastfeeding books can be quite dry reading, but I didn’t find that with this book. Mrs. Gaskin addresses topics not covered in other breastfeeding books. She never ceases to educate, humor, and delight.

The greatest importance of this book is the attitude conveyed of how natural breastfeeding is. It is easy in our culture to become removed from nature and things that are natural. Mrs. Gaskin recognizes this when she points out that an increasing amount of residents in our society don’t even realize what the primary purpose of breasts is. Our society often views breasts as entirely sexual, when in fact, their primary purpose is to nourish our young. Evidence is given that other cultures do not hold the same views as we do. Mrs. Gaskin points out that in some cultures, women must remain covered because their entire body is considered sexual, however, their breasts are not. This was refreshing to learn about.

Another topic I enjoyed is what Mrs. Gaskin labels as “nipplephobia.” She believes our society suffers from nipplephobia because we do not see enough breasts, especially being used during their first and foremost function of breastfeeding. While written with slight humor at times, this chapter addresses a very real and important issue in our society. The solution? According to Ina May, visual stimulus overload!

I also enjoyed reading Mrs. Gaskin’s personal stories and experiences used to illustrate her points. I have a hunch you’ll find Mrs. Gaskin’s life as fascinating as I do. She has a history of living her life against the grain in her own unique way and serves as a role model to future generations struggling in our fight against incorrect mainstream dogma.

I have to say my absolute favorite part of this book that I was overjoyed to see addressed was the idea of shared nursing. This is also commonly referred to as milksharing, which I am a huge advocate of. Shared nursing is a tiny bit different in which women who have close relationships feel comfortable feeding each other’s babies when they need arises. Milksharing often refers more to the informal donation of milk to women who may not produce enough milk for their babies such as in the events of adoption or prior breast surgeries. I often judge a breastfeeding book based upon whether they address this valid part of breastfeeding. I was happy to see this topic addressed in this book. Shared nursing is a classic example of how Mrs. Gaskin continually challenges our thinking in this society of what is considered acceptable. She is not afraid to speak out on her convictions even if they are not popular thought.

Another important chapter I enjoyed was How Birth Practices Affect Breastfeeding. This chapter contains a lot of useful and truthful information. It stands to reason Mrs. Gaskin would understand this topic better than most. What I specifically love about this chapter is that it gives information beyond simply breastfeeding (as much of this book does) and relates other issues back to breastfeeding. For example, this chapter covers topics such as pain medications, eating and drinking during labor, circumcision, delayed cord cutting, and rooming in amongst other topics. Presenting this information allows the reader to gain insight to these topics as well.

Other topics covered in this book include how breastfeeding works and how to prepare, the basics of getting started, your baby’s needs and yours, sleeping arrangements, problem solving during the first week, the first three months, working outside the home, nursing older babies, twins, and multiples, weaning, and much more. There is no shortage of information in this book. As it says on the back cover, this book may very well be “the only breastfeeding book you’ll need.”

The only aspect I would like to have seen addressed in greater detail in the book is found in the appendix. There is a decent amount of information regarding medications during breastfeeding. I didn’t find this part too thrilling as I am not much of an advocate of pharmaceuticals. What I am interested in, however, is herbs. After the section on medications, there is a list of herbs not to be used during lactation. No information is given as to why these particular herbs would not be a good choice. I would have loved to have read a good discussion on this topic, but perhaps, this is information for a different book.

No doubt this book will come to be treasured for many generations. Mrs. Gaskin’s gift to us is imparting her wisdom of breastfeeding in hopes someday all babies from America will have the benefit of suckling at their mother’s breasts and receive all the nutrition and nurturing from nature’s brilliant design.

The Pregnancy Book By William Sears M.D. and Martha Sears R.N.

2009-10-02T17:08:00.002-05:00

This book is part of the Sears Library of Books. Written by the very popular William and Martha Sears, this book is one of a family of several other books. William Sears is a well respected pediatrician and loved by many parents for his alternative ideas.

I have mixed feelings about this book. In one regard, I’m a fan of Dr. Sears and his wife. They’ve raised eight children. They present some wonderful ideas. I’m sure they have a pretty good idea of what they’re doing. I simply didn’t agree with everything in the book. Not that I fully expected too (if you’ve read our review of The Vaccine Book, this wouldn’t be a surprise). I feel that even though the Sears present alternative ideas at times, it does not mean that every recommendation they make is fully holistic. While it is possible for a medical doctor to be holistic, this is not a doctor’s main training. Therefore, I tend to be a little leery of anything written by a physician because their fundamental beliefs often differ from my own.

Without further ado, I’ll mention the things I enjoyed as well as the parts I didn’t. To begin, this book is very thick. It is not by any means a quick read. What is the saving grace for this book is that it is set up by the months of pregnancy. This makes reading it more enjoyable and easier as you can simply read one section each month and obtain the information necessary for each month.

Each month gives information of what you may be feeling emotionally and physically, changes that may be occurring, concerns you may have, and how the baby is growing. Each section has extras as well. One month contains information about work, another has information of childbirth classes and giving birth, and yet another on nutrition during pregnancy. I would say if you read this book, you will have quite the well rounded amount of information a pregnant women should have. One thing I do feel that is left out however is things to do for various circumstances. This book offers no advice or remedies or ways to handle certain situations. It merely informs, describes, and explains a lot of information. While this can be good, I personally like when a well informed author shares their conclusions about the things in which they have written. This way I can take the information and use it or I can leave behind what I don’t want. For example, each month lists some discomforts of pregnancy. For some of the discomforts, there is advice of what you can do to help, but other times, the authors merely explain what you may be experiencing with no information on what to do about it. So, if you’re having hip pain, and you look in this book, it explains that hip pain is something you may be experiencing. So you think, “Great, at least I know this is normal.” Well, what do you do next? Live with it? Personally, I would rather have information or recommendations on something I could do to help it. This is why I love other pregnancy books written by midwives or herbalists because they usually know a lot more about little tricks of things you can do. Physicians usually have a lack of understanding in these areas because they don’t learn about complementary medicine. There’s a lot of other treatment modalities in our world besides just conventional medicine. Many medications are not a good idea while pregnant, which makes me have to ask if they are really a good idea at any time, but that’s a discussion for another time.

There are also some recommendations that I don’t like in this book. An example would be for every woman to be on an iron supplement. This is bad advice. For starters, a woman’s iron is tested during pregnancy. If it isn’t too low, and the woman has no symptoms of iron deficiency, this is unnecessary. Iron supplements are hard to digest and can easily cause constipation. This is something that can be difficult for a pregnant woman to handle as constipation is already a problem for some pregnant women as well as hemorrhoids. I’m not going to go into detail for every tiny thing I disagreed with, but my advice is simple. Be a bit picky about the information and check it against other sources. There are certainly enough pregnancy books out there.

Some positives for the authors is that they recognize the importance of VBACS and seem to understand episiotomies well. These are two important areas to know if a book is a total loss or not. I would have liked to see a whole lot more discussion of natural childbirth however. There’s a wealth of information on the epidural. I don’t agree with many of the conclusions they’ve drawn about the epidural. Some of the information presented is okay, but a lot of it gives the wrong impression of epidurals. Epidurals really bother me. I think they are a travesty for women. Most who research them feel this way in my opinion. Once you realize the benefits of natural childbirth, you can’t really go back. I like when authors who are knowledgeable can come right out and say this.

I could go on all day as this book is long. I’ll stop here with one closing remark. I would pick this book any day over What to Expect When You’re Expecting, however, just don’t let this be the only pregnancy book you read. There’s more out there that will give you a better perspective of some things. If you read this book, also check out Pushed, Born in the USA, and The Natural Pregnancy Book for further information.

Teaching Your Child Positive Discipline By Penny Shore

2009-09-20T17:48:00.002-05:00

I enjoyed this book. It contains practical and useful information with a sensitivity to how children operate. This book reads extremely quickly if you simply read it straight through. It is designed, however, as a workbook of sorts. I believe the usability and practicality of the workbook portion will vary for each reader, but I do feel the reader is left with some good things to think about.

Positive discipline is not understood by our mainstream society. Often times, children are expected to act like miniature adults. Child development is poorly understood by many. Positive discipline emphasizes the difference between discipline and punishment. Our society relies heavily on punishment, which is a mentality of "you did something bad, so I'll do something bad to you." Often times, the punishments we hand out for various offenses by our children do not teach our children what we desire them to learn.

What actual discipline strives for is to maintain the trusting, loving relationship with your child while providing guidance and helping your child reach their full potential. Natural consequences to actions are emphasized in order for children to learn from their mistakes. Positive discipline recognizes the importance of never hitting your child. The detrimental effects of hitting your child are explained in this book.

The most important thing I took away from this book is the fact that the foundation to discipline is trust. If your child trusts you and knows they are safe with you, they are more likely to listen to you and learn. Trust must be established for discipline to work.

You must also be connected with your child and know your child. I believe many people think they know their child, when in reality they don't. This is not something to be ashamed of, but it is something to realize and correct. How many parents complain that they have a hard time relating to their children? Too many. I believe this stems from not knowing your child.

The best part of this book is the eight strategies for encouraging cooperation. One of these strategies is teaching by example. Most of us punish our children for behaviors they learned from us. Meeting your child's basic needs is another. Children are more irritable and likely to have less self control when they are tired or hungry. It is the parent's job to recognize this. It is also important for the parent to make sure they are setting realistic expectations for their child's behavior. It is also the parent's job to communicate clearly with the child by getting and maintaining the child's attention. This book emphasizes that in many circumstances an ounce of prevention goes a long way.

Ultimately, this is a pretty decent book. It's a good starting point for someone interested in learning about positive discipline. It reads easily and quickly. Due to its short nature, however, I wouldn't recommend making this the only book you read on the subject. More reviews on this topic to come.

How to Get Your Baby to Sleep By William Sears M.D. and Martha Sears R.N.

2009-09-15T12:58:00.000-05:00

This is a very small and short question and answer type book. I couldn't tell if the questions were made up by the authors or if real people had actually written the questions. There is some great information contained in this book. It is fast, informational, and easy to read.

One drawback to this book, however, is that the information is very repetitive. For as short as the book is to begin with, the same information seemed to be repeated continuously. Other than that though, there are some good suggestions.

The best thing about Sears sleep books is that they are very conscious of the philosophy to be sensitive to your baby's needs. They are not for the cry it out method, which is appreciated by any mindful parent. Therefore, the suggestions in this book can be trusted. They offer simple tools and suggestions on how to get your baby to sleep better.

Several of their suggestions I appreciated were the wearing down approach. You or your partner can wear your baby in a carrier until baby falls asleep and then gently lay baby down. They also suggest it okay for dad or someone else to take the putting to sleep shift sometimes so mom doesn't get burned out. The book stresses that it is good for other people to be able to put baby to sleep and not just mom in case there are times when mom may not be available. They also recommend to put baby to sleep in various ways. The authors call this sleep associations. It is good to have a bedtime routine for baby such as a bath, some stories, a massage, some songs, etc. But then to get baby to sleep, one night you may rock baby, the next you may nurse baby, that way baby can fall asleep in a variety of ways.

There is also information regarding safe sleeping environments (they are big advocates of the Arm's Reach Co-Sleeper), babies who have their days and nights mixed up, sleep sharing, SIDS, causes of frequent night waking, how to help baby relax, nighttime parenting, sleep at different ages, nighttime feedings, tips for tired moms, and much more. Be prepared though that this book is simple and short, so many of the answers are very brief. Some of the answers are sufficient, but others I would have loved them to be expanded upon.

The difference between this book and Elizabeth Pantley's No Cry Sleep Solution is that Pantley's book is much more in depth. It contains a lot more information and is still my favorite baby sleep book. Pantley's book outlines a plan, while this book just contains small nuggets of information.

All in all, a good read, but perhaps not necessary for everyone.

Sleep: The Easy Way to Peaceful Nights By Beatrice Hollyer & Lucy Smith

2009-09-02T21:55:00.000-05:00

I checked this book out from the library in a moment of weakness or maybe it was a blur of exhaustiveness. I’m only kidding; my sleep situation was not that bad. I was intrigued a bit by this book, only until I realized there are tons of books out there on how to get your baby to sleep. I thought, however, because it is decently short, I’d read it for kicks.

Well, I do have to report that I really didn’t learn anything new from this book. If I were using this book to search for answers as to how to get my baby to sleep, I would finish this book and think “What now?” The main thing lacking is a definitive plan once this book has reached its conclusion. I’m still left wondering what I should do. Perhaps, it is because this book is just kind of vague. It covers a fair range of topics, but doesn’t have much depth to it.

Many times as I was reading this book, I felt the authors were pointing out something so obvious, I wondered what they were actually getting at. I suppose this book simply didn’t appeal to me. None of the advice resonated within my being, and I simply did not connect with the book. I also do not feel as though the book was written with a holistic frame of mind. Ultimately, I feel this is another book of “getting baby to sleep at all costs” frame of mind than a gentle book of respecting baby as a human with needs and emotions similar to all humans.

I’d say you can safely skip this book and go directly to The No Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley. That’s a book worth reading, and let’s face it; when you need some sleep, you can’t be messing around with many different books trying to decide on the right one.

The No Cry Sleep Solution By Elizabeth Pantley

2009-08-28T20:47:00.001-05:00

I absolutely love books by Elizabeth Pantley. She just seems to “get it”. She understands parents, and she understands children. Her writing is very easy to read, while still providing fantastic information. This book reads very quickly, which if you’re a sleep deprived parent, is very important.

I became attracted to the various books she writes because of their “no cry” titles. Since I don’t enjoy hearing my children cry, I thought I would give her books a try. I was particularly adamant about reading this book because there is no way possible I will ever again let a baby of mine cry it out all alone in their crib in an attempt to teach them good sleeping habits. I feel I am now too in touch with my mothering instincts and too aware of not only what babies need, but also how they think and feel. So, as a parent to a baby who is not too much of a sleeper, I came to the point of needing to find a book that would allow us to get a good night’s sleep without crying.

I turned to this book and found the answers I was looking for. While I very much believe in co-sleeping and wasn’t willing to give it up, there are times when a new parent just really does need to sleep. Therefore, I needed a book that took this into account. Many books that “train” a baby to sleep advocate for the baby sleeping in their crib only. Everything about this book is respectful of parent and baby needs as well as each family’s individual situations. This plan should work for all choices and circumstances. It doesn’t matter where your baby sleeps or if you breast or bottle feed. This plan can work for everyone.

With this book, there is finally a middle ground. You can have a baby that sleeps, but without the crying. Most other books say a baby either has to cry it out or the parent basically has to suck it up and deal with it until the child eventually sleeps through the night. That’s precisely why this book is so refreshing. Pantley doesn’t guarantee success overnight. She does take a very practical approach, however.

The best part of this book besides the wisdom it contains is that Pantley outlines a practical, doable plan that is easy to understand. The plan is also flexible in that she gives a bunch of options, and then families are able to choose what options will work for them or what they want to try. There are charts, logs, and questionaires in the book that, if paid attention to and filled out, give the parent a sense of direction when the book is finished. It’s so easy to read a book, and still think, “What should I do next?” This shouldn’t happen with this book.

The guidance outlined in this book coupled with the practical, gentle solutions will be a welcome relief for parents who feel tired, but unwilling to let their babies cry it out. I believe this book can work for any family and encourage those who need some help to give it a try.

Ina May's Guide to Childbirth by Ina May Gaskin

2009-08-27T18:36:00.001-05:00

This is by far my favorite book written on the topic of birth. I would saying reading this book several years ago was a turning point for me. I was working as a labor and delivery nurse. I was in the stage of hoping for another baby, and yet not wanting an experience as so many women were having in the hospital. This book changed my thinking in many ways, and I probably would not be where I am today without it. For this, I am deeply grateful to Mrs. Gaskin.

This is the book that opened my eyes to homebirth, which was the single most life changing, empowering event I have ever experienced. Ina May has done a noble work for birthing women for many years. She has gained our trust and shown us what birth can be like. Before this book, I was only vaguely aware of homebirth. I wasn’t sure homebirth could actually be a possibility for me, yet I was intrigued. By the end of this book, I had found the strength to pursue a homebirth.

The most important part of this book to me was addressing the concept of fear surrounding birth. This is discussed in various parts littered throughout the book. It was astounding to me at first to learn that some people are not afraid to give birth. I realized that I was internally afraid even though I had already given birth to my first child. This book was my first step in understanding why we do have fear during birth, and for the first time, I felt like I may be able to get to a point where I was not afraid.

Ina May devotes a chapter of this book to the “Sphincter Law.” This brilliant concept illustrates how the cervix is a sphincter. The cervix works much like other sphincters of our body. Just as it would be hard to have a bowel movement in bright lights with an audience, so it is the same with giving birth.

Similar to Spiritual Midwifery, this book also contains empowering birth stories of women having experienced natural childbirth. The book gives insight as to why it is helpful to read positive stories before giving birth. Many of these stories have the potential to open a woman’s eyes to a way of birth she never thought possible.

I feel this book is geared a little more toward the average woman than Spiritual Midwifery, also by Ina May Gaskin. There are parts that detail information on labor, birth, prenatal care, and the midwifery model of care. The reader will walk away with a greater knowledge and understanding of the process of birth.

Ultimately, the words Ina May writes ring true. Much of what she wrote resonated within my being and left a deep impression on me. This book could change birth as we know it if the wisdom contained within is heeded.

The Natural Pregnancy Book by Aviva Jill Romm

2009-08-26T20:40:00.002-05:00

Oh how I loved this book. Now here we have a truly holistic book on our hands. This book is refreshing in that it is written so intelligently. There were many parts I really liked, and I would recommend this book to any and every pregnant women. It was so educational, inspiring, and empowering, which is just what I want in a good book. I’ll summarize some of my favorite parts.

The author gives a brief history of birth, which is one of my favorite things to learn about. Did you know that out of the 4 million women who give birth every year, only 1,600 of them do so at home? This is kind of an astounding number when you consider that a little over 100 years ago, 95% of women gave birth at home. I do enjoy the fact though that there are 1,600 women each year that are willing to go against the grain and have a homebirth. In the world of homebirth, sometimes it’s easy to feel alone.

I enjoyed the section on listening to your body. Most of us just simply don’t. Many people don’t even get to use the restroom at work when they need to. I really believe in listening to your body. It is even more so important during pregnancy. The author believes in making sure you sleep when you feel tired, making sure you eat what your body is telling you (and no that doesn’t just mean a bunch of junk food, it’s about knowing your body is asking for certain nutrients and getting those nutrients for your body), and paying attention to emotions you’re having.

I REALLY enjoyed the part about communicating with your baby. This is not touched on enough in most books. I love the thought that the baby can communicate with its mother before it is born. This makes sense to me and I believe it to be true. The author gives good insight into this such as how to listen and connect with your baby so that you are able to communicate.

The author then explains prenatal care and care from different types of providers. She is very respectful in her descriptions, but she is honest and tells it like it is. This part actually made me laugh. It is just so refreshing when an author is actually honest without any pretenses.

There is also very good information on nutrition in this book. I personally enjoyed the author’s understanding and acknowledgment of various alternative diets such as vegetarianism. I tend to be put off by books that automatically discredit alternative eating choices simple because they are not the norm or are poorly understood by the author. This author does not do that. I also respect her position of listening to your body in that even if you follow a certain way of eating, if you’re body is telling you something you need, listen to it.

One of my favorite parts of the whole book is the author’s information on weight. She “doesn’t place any emphasis on weight” because a woman can gain weight even on an inadequate diet. This is so incredibly true! It is nice to hear someone else verify this as most people just don’t get it, especially when it comes to pregnancy. Instead, pay attention to what a woman is actually eating and work on her nutrient intake.

This book also covers exercise, posture, emotions, physical changes, rest, herbs for pregnancy, and birth as a rite of passage. All of the information given is excellent. The last large chunk of the book is devoted to common concerns during pregnancy and what can be done for them. Very enlightening chapter.

This is a great book, especially if you are pregnant or trying to become pregnant. I just absolutely loved it!

The Vaccine Safety Manual By Neil Z Miller

2009-08-23T18:07:00.002-05:00

This is my favorite vaccine book of all time. It is an amazingly well researched, well written, thought provoking, enlightening book. This is the book to read if you want an in depth look at the issues surrounding vaccines. This book is crucially important because it addresses a wealth of issues that most books leave out. After reading this book, you will undoubtedly be fully informed regarding the controversy over vaccines, the risks associated with them, and why there are people wholeheartedly concerned.

This book may question every belief you’ve ever had about vaccines. It is painstakingly well researched and well documented. I can only imagine the hours this author poured into researching and writing this book. There are too many books out there that downplay the issues surrounding vaccines. This book does not do that.

What this book does do is devote an entire chapter to every vaccine. It then proceeds to explore in incredible depth a thorough look at the history, safety, concerns, and all issues with each vaccine. I am truly astounded by this book.

There are also various other chapters devoted to things such as laws regarding vaccines, new vaccines, autism (this chapter will blow your mind), even Rhogam and vitamin K injections.
If you’ve never questioned vaccines; if you’ve never questioned so called “authorities” on vaccines; if you’ve never questioned whether vaccines were responsible for the decline of disease; if you’ve never questioned if the smallpox vaccine truly irradicated smallpox; if you’ve never questioned If the polio vaccine does more harm than good; if you’ve never questioned the safety of vaccines; if you have always simply blindly trusted and believed your doctor, our government, or whoever else waved their hand and told you there was nothing to worry about, the shots are completely safe; then this is absolutely the book you need to read.

It’s a thick book. It’s going to take time and commitment to read. It’s truly fascinating though. I’d be surprised if after reading it, anyone wouldn’t be outraged or sickened. If you read this, you will have to be prepared for it to truly open your eyes to the issues. It may change your thinking completely. You may even have to reevaluate things in your life. It’s a possibility. Why would you even want to? Why does it even matter? I know ignorance is supposedly bliss, but knowledge is power. You or your children can be harmed by what you don’t know. I feel every parent owes it to their children to make safe choices and research like crazy before they make big decisions. Vaccines are a big decision. Our society doesn’t make them seem like they are, but they are!

Give the book a read. You really don’t have anything to lose. You may even have something to gain.

Spiritual Midwifery By Ina May Gaskin

2009-08-21T21:50:00.001-05:00

This is a beloved book. Honestly, I would probably love everything by Ina May Gaskin. She’s got a good head on her shoulders. I enjoyed Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth a bit more so than this book, so be sure to read that one also. However, this book is indispensible and presents some different information than the other book.

The book begins with birth stories. I love to read a good birth story. I feel birth stories are incredibly important for women to read during their pregnancy. It gives women positive energy and encouragement. Birth stories helped me envision my birth. If one thing is for sure, Ina May understands birth. So, these stories are particularly wonderful ones to read. Something can be learned from each one. Mostly, they serve to help women feel less afraid and more empowered. Many of those stories come from a different time era than we are in now, so some of the stories may seem a little far out with words such as psychedelic. You’ll get used to it.

The middle section of this book give information common to other pregnancy books. There are sections on breastfeeding, nutrition, and how to prepare for labor. The information presented is concrete and excellent.

The last section of the book is mainly written to midwives. It contains just about anything you’d ever want to know about birth. While not the average women will be interested in knowing how to sew a woman up after she tears, the information is there if you want it. Midwives and obstetricians as well could learn from this book, though it cannot serve as the sole training of a birth attendant of course. Personally, I think it should be required for all pregnant women to read this information presented in this book. The more knowledge you have of the process, the less fear can take up space in your heart.

If you’re a pregnant woman who hasn’t read this book yet, then add it to your book list or even move it to the top. It is a great book and important to read. The information presented is easy to understand, though very thorough. Highly recommend.

The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding by La Leche League International

2009-08-20T19:00:00.000-05:00

This is the king of breastfeeding books. Written by La Leche League International, this book has been around for some time and revised numerous times. It has been loved by many mothers. I find this book to be perfectly named. To begin with, I cannot imagine anything more womanly than pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding. I cherished the fact that it was my womanly duty and right to breastfeed. I felt so special that I was the one who could nourish my baby. It is womanly.

Breastfeeding is also an art. It is beautiful. It also takes some skill. While it may be natural to do, it is not necessarily easy. Breastfeeding is making a comeback, but it is an art that can be lost somewhat by society. Generations used to pass this knowledge down to other generations. In many ways, this stopped happening for a time. This is why I thoroughly love the name chosen for this book.

There is more information in this book than will probably ever be contained in one breastfeeding book again. While there are some things that are left out, these are more special circumstances type things that require their own book. Otherwise, this book covers pretty much everything a normal nursing mom would need to know. If you have questions, this is the book to come to.

Another aspect I like of this book is how inspiring this book is in favor of breastfeeding. Just having it sit on my lap inspires me to want to breastfeed or in the very least to know more about it. This book is so thick. It makes me feel like “Wow, there must really be something to this breastfeeding thing.” I can’t go into specifics here on all the things this book talks about because it covers so much. There are too many things I liked to even list them all.

There are several disadvantages to this book, however, so I’ll talk a tiny bit about those. This book is so thick. This makes it hard to feel motivated to read, and it takes a long time to read. It’s not a book if you only want to be introduced to breastfeeding. It’s more of a reference book. It’s there to look up for specific questions. It may be hard to get through a book this thick with a new baby around, and once you have breastfed, it’s kind of old information.

Another drawback to this book is that while it has a ton of different tidbits of information on breastfeeding in it, there are many topics that could be covered in much more depth. This book covers many topics and gives a broad view of knowledge, but some things are not quite covered thoroughly.

The only other drawback I can think of is that it could be boring if you’re not particularly interested in reading about breastfeeding. The target audience is obviously a little bit smaller than most books, even though it shouldn’t be that way.

Despite a few disadvantages, it really is a great book. I would have it on hand to use to reference if I were looking for specific information. It is not totally for people with more extreme issues. It cannot replace individualized help of a lactation consultant. It does however give terrific, correct breastfeeding information and inspires passion for breastfeeding. This is always a good thing. Totally recommend.

The New Breastfeeding Diet Plan By Robert Roundtree M.D. and Melissa Block M. Ed.

2009-08-18T10:27:00.000-05:00

The title of this book is a bit misleading. It is not really about “dieting” or losing weight while breastfeeding. It is more about a way to eat while breastfeeding that minimizes toxin exposure while introducing the most amount of nutrients. Honestly, I liked this book much more than I originally thought I would. I wasn’t sure quite what to expect from this book.

The thing that really attracted me to this book was that it is about toxins in breastmilk. This is an area of great interest to me, so I found this book quite interesting. The book outlines ways to minimize the amount of toxins going into the breastmilk by encouraging the body to eliminate toxins in other ways. The book discusses proper nutrition in great lengths.

I do feel this book left some unanswered questions for me. I do feel as though I would need to verify some of the information mentioned with various sources. For example, the author seems particularly against vegan diets. The author doesn’t even seem too fond of vegetarian diets in general. Since I am a bit of a fan for both and my thinking tends to lie more in favor for vegetarian and vegan diets, it is not possible for me to simply swallow this information. It’s interesting though that vegetarian diets have less toxins in general, though the author states this is not a practical way of reducing toxins. I disagree.

The first few chapters of this book are rather dry reading. There’s a lot about proper vitamins, minerals, fats. It’s all important, but not the most interesting reading for everyone. Lots of facts and numbers; rather technical. Keep reading though because it does pick up.

I very much like that this book stresses the importance of breastfeeding. Of course, we know it is, but it doesn’t hurt to hear it.

An interesting fact I learned from this book was that breastmilk loses its vitamin C count the longer it is frozen. This is very interesting to me as I had not previously known that. Also, I know a lot of babies get frozen milk, so this is potentially something to pay attention to.

The book recommends not delaying solids past six months for a risk of iron deficiency. They recommend starting a little sooner if baby is interested. This advice is not consistent with other sources, therefore I would recommend studying this a little more in depth before deciding either way. There are sources that tend to say delay solids as long as possible. I am more apt to believe this advice because I believe there can be a lot more problems from starting solids too early than the risk of iron deficiency. If the mother is eating the proper foods, her milk should be just fine.

The author seems to have a good understanding of toxins and chemicals. I enjoyed reading this information. The author talks about the precautionary principle, which is basically to assume something is not safe until it is proven so. First do no harm. Though this is not at all the way our society operates. The author claims to get dangerous chemicals removed from products happens at a snail’s pace. This is so true and ridiculous. This book gives inspiration to do something about this. If there is components of rocket fuel showing up in women’s braastmilk, then we have a major problem.

An excellent point made in this book however, is not to let the toxins found in breastmilk dissuade you from breastfeeding. This is very important advice. It is easy to think maybe formula is better, but this is not true in the slightest.

A great quote.

“With so many chemicals commonly produced and used, it’s an impossible task to thoroughly test them all. It’s even more impossible to imagine testing all the potential effects of every combination of those chemicals on living things. But there is strong evidence that these chemicals have played a role in the rise of chronic diseases over the past fifty years- the period during which most of these chemicals were created and entered into widespread use.”

The author also makes the wonderful point about medications and how they are also toxins. I love this! Too few people think of them this way, but that’s what they are- toxins! Toxins cannot produce good health. This book is written by a medical doctor by the way. Nice.

The author discusses the controversy on soy. Good thing to mention if you’re writing about nutrition. Though the discussion leaves out information the difference between fermented and unfermented soy and GMO concerns with soy.

There are quite a lot of good tips in this book for just living in general. One such advice is to fill one psray bottle of hydrogen peroxide and one of vinegar and spray them on the same surface to clean. Cleans like bleach, but you don’t have to use bleach. Bleach is toxic by the way and really shouldn’t ever be used.

There’s actually a lot of information about formula in this book though it is a breastfeeding book. I suppose it’s in there for people that cannot breastfeed, though a lot of time is spent talking about formula. It is educational. I’m not sure I would take every recommendation to hear, but many of them are good.

Bottle feeding is discussed and there is information on choosing a nipple. I just wanted to add a little to it. Nipple manufacturers have extremely poor quality control standards. If you are breastfeeding, baby will always need a slow flow nipple. Each nipple must be tested though. Test with water, but if the water just flies out when the bottle is tipped, it is not a slow flow nipple. Buy a few packages and throw out the ones that don’t make the cut. Nipples also wear out, so check regularly.

There is plenty more good information found in this book. I think it is worthwhile to read. While, the book does leave me with some unanswered questions, I suppose now I have some more research to do.

The Naturally Healthy Pregnancy By Shonda Parker

2009-08-17T12:53:00.000-05:00

This book is great to use for referencing. It’s one of those great kinds of books to simply have in your collection to be used for things later on. This book is a bit uninteresting to simply read through. The author is an herbalist. Basically, there are all sorts of discomforts of pregnancy listed and nutritional recommendations for each one as well as remedies and supplements to consider. As I am not an herbalist nor have I tried each remedy, I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information, but I did enjoy the book. I felt the information was presented in an understandable fashion. I like books such as these that I can come back to later when I have an issue I want information about. The internet is hard to find information sometimes that is reputable. With books, it’s easy to see their documentation, credentials, and verify the information for yourself. That’s what I love about books.

This book offers more information than simply herbal remedies as well. While it is possible to find this information elsewhere, it is nice to have a large of information packed into one place. This book covers information for nutrition during pregnancy. A general rule of thumb I look for in books that address the topic of nutrition is a discussion on whole foods. This is foods in their natural unaltered state. I believe this is the healthiest way to eat the foods. Anything manmade or processed or altered is a waste of time if you want to experience the best health possible. This book has information on this. Another positive for this book is the recommendation about microwaves. I believe microwaves are horrible, and I will not eat food that comes from them. Too many books don’t address this. I also appreciated the author’s discussion on milk during pregnancy, although I would have liked to see soy addressed. Of course, this book was published in 1998. There has been a lot more awareness about soy since then.

An interesting approach this book takes is that it is written in relation to religion and brings God into the discussion. Personally, I enjoyed this aspect. Others may not. It’s just not many books do this or consider God a part of the picture in regards to some of the topics mentioned. I think the author did a good job conveying her message for those who do believe He is an integral part of everyting.

There is information on family planning and breastfeeding as well. Ultimately, a decent book to have lying around.

The Complete Organic Pregnancy By Alexandra Zissu and Deirdre Dolan

2009-08-15T13:50:00.001-05:00

This is a good book. The authors include an extensive range of things to think about. I especially enjoy reading about toxins and how to avoid them. There is plenty of that in this book. For many people, this book could be a real eye opener. There’s so many toxins in our environment that we don’t even think about or consider toxic.

I do have a few complaints of this book. It’s rare for me to find a book that I consider “alternative” enough. Sometimes, books really beat around an issue instead of addressing it head on. If you’re going to mention flu shots in your book, then do all the possible research on flu shots during pregnancy. Instead, the authors address flu shots, but really don’t make a suggestion either way. While of course it’s not the author’s decision if someone should get a flu shot, it’s the pregnant woman’s, it still doesn’t mean the recommendation for all flu shots shouldn’t be the same. I get tired of the classic “what’s right for me may not be the same thing that’s right for you” line. In some cases, this may be true, but in other such as flu shots, it is not. A flu shot is toxic material that cannot produce health. The end. You can get it if you want. You may not even have a noticeable reaction to it. But internally, it will be reeking havoc on your body whether or not you know it and whether or not some scientific study “proves” it. This is simply the nature of a vaccine. Why can’t books just come outright and say this?

Basically, I don’t agree on hundred percent with everything said in this book, however, it is still a good book because many wonderful things are pointed out. I’ll try to list a few of them now.
There is some discussion on the importance of organic food and whole foods. There is discussion on local foods as well. There are some great website resources. There’s a small section on foods to avoid when pregnant. Their list is very basic. I like how they mentioned coffee and the fact not to get chemically processed coffee. Instead buy a water processed version. Many sources forget to mention this.

I like how this book is arranged. Its chapters are planned out thoughtfully. Basically, each environment a woman inhabits is thought of and chapters are arranged accordingly. This makes it easy to find and refer back to information.

I found this book to contain plenty of information of toxins, which I love because it is so important for people to know and understand. There is a website that authors share: www.scorecard.org. This website gives info on your particular city by typing in your zip code. I just found out my city is in the top 10% of dirtiest cities in the U.S. Very cool website.
It seems like most of the discussion in this book is in regards to the toxins in the home and toxins in personal care products, i.e. shampoos, cosmetics, etc. These chapters are very good at addressing the issues and giving pointers on what to avoid. I feel the advice the book gives in practical and important. We can’t avoid every toxic, but we can best control the ones in our home. The work chapter is very short. I suppose it’s harder to avoid toxins at work, but it was kind of humorous to see such a short chapter.

There’s also information in this book about birth, baby, and postpartum. I appreciate what the authors had to say about cloth diapers and breastfeeding. They say to have patience with breastfeeding. I love this because too many women give up way to early. Stick it out. It may be natural, which doesn’t equate to easy, so yes, breastfeeding takes a real commitment. Bravo to the authors for pointing this out.

The bottom line is that I would recommend this book. It’s a great, easy, and fun read. It is an eye opener for some people. It is great to refer back to, which is why I actually purchased to keep in my collection.

The Roots of Natural Mothering By Janice Marsh-Prelesnik

2009-08-13T21:06:00.000-05:00

This book was quite appealing to me. It’s a short, easy read. I enjoy reading books that center around natural mothering. I really believe in listening to our instincts as parents. This book devoted an entire chapter to discussing intuition. It describes the difference between simply instincts and listening to one’s intuition. This was very enlightening to me. This book could be best described as having little tidbits of information; little gems littered here and there on the pages. There are no lengthy or deep discussions on any one topic, but a small rainbow of topics are briefly touched upon. I found many things the author said that resonated into my being and filled my spirit.

There is such a deep respect in this book for the sacredness of pregnancy, birth, and the mother-baby bond. I found this gratifying to read as it reminded me of how truly a wonderful time these events are. In the midst of them, it is easy to forget how treasured the memories will one day be.
According to the book, instinct is the same within an entire species. Intuition is individual. Instincts basically mean things such as the ability to protect our young and sense danger. Instincts do help make good decisions. Intuition seems to go a bit deeper in my opinion. It allows for more individualized decision making. Sometimes, this is described as an “ah ha” moment, where you were able to see things clearly in a way you hadn’t before.

The author is a midwife, so she offers information on pregnancy, birth, and postpartum. There is a decent amount of good information, but since nothing is described quite in depth, this is not really a resource type book. The author is also an herbalist, so there is emphasis on the use of herbs. She offers a good amount of information in this area.

I did enjoy reading this book. It is peaceful, and you can almost feel a gentle breeze while you read it. I don’t think it would make a good book to refer back to however. I probably won’t read it again simply because it’s just a one-time read type of book. The only thing I could potentially see referencing again is some of the herbal recipes listed. Those could come in handy. Ultimately, this book offers insight, encouragement, and empowerment. There are many things said that are right on and ring true. Try to find this book at the library, however, I don’t think I would necessarily run out and buy it.

The Everything Pregnancy Nutrition Book By Kimberly A Tessmer

2009-08-09T12:21:00.001-05:00

Sadly, this is another book of incorrect nutrition propaganda. It is easy to think that because it is a book on nutrition, it should be correct. How hard is it to eat healthy? Well, the fact is that there is just as much misinformation and tainting of information on nutrition as there is for everything else.

Nutrition goes far beyond trying to get in all the recommended servings of fruits and veggies. Here’s a decent test to see if someone actually understands the world of nutrition. If they are still using the conventional Food Guide Pyramid, they have no idea what they are talking about. If they are recommending you eat soy products, they still have more studying to do. If they’re telling a vegetarian to eat tofu dogs, then they’re never tried to be one.

I found this book to run along the same lines. Sure, it is a thick book and looks like it has thought of everything. Therefore, it’s easy to be deluded that you now have a complete and accurate picture of pregnancy nutrition, except that some of the information is just wrong.

Here’s an example. I read the section on MSG. I know a lot about MSG. It’s a really nasty substance. It has no business being in your body or your food, especially if you are pregnant. This book doesn’t exactly put MSG in a positive light, but the book still spews the infamous line “the FDA recognizes MSG as generally safe for the population to consume.” Well, that’s a laugh.

If you’re still looking to the FDA for information on nutrition or anything for that matter than you still have a lot to learn. Don’t trust your health with the corrupt FDA. An honest, holistic book would tell you to run for your life and stay far away from MSG. All the FDA’s statement means is that you probably won’t drop dead instantly, unless you are one of the unlucky few who actually do, but that hardly means it is healthy or safe.

I found this book to have a lot of issues such as my above example in it. A book that recommends women take prescription prenatal vitamins and drink milk is not high on my list. There are so many holistic nutrition books out there that give real nutrition information.

You have to look for alternative type of sources of information. These sources are usually telling the truth. When you have a book saying that the FDA believes it’s okay to use aspartame in low amounts because it doesn’t cause birth defects, you would be inclined to believe that small amounts of aspartame are okay. You would be mistaken. Aspartame is dangerous!

The real problem may be that this book was written by a registered dietician. Many times dieticians and even many nutritionists have no idea what constitutes real nutrition. They have a lot of complex formulas and calculations to produce their desired result. But many dieticians will still recommend that their diabetic patients should simply drink “diet” soda instead of regular because there’s not as noticeable effect on their blood sugar. How silly!

I would venture to say you can safely not waste your time on this book and find one that will really teach you something.

The Vaccine Book By Dr. Robert W. Sears

2009-07-29T23:51:00.004-05:00

When I picked up this book, I was unsuspecting of the inevitable shock I would receive as I started to read this book. I must start by saying that I love most things the Sears family produces. They typically offer superb information. That is why I was utterly disappointed in this book.

There are many fundamental errors in this book regarding vaccines and in the paragraphs that follow, I will outline exactly what they are. Interestingly, the most important information in this book can be found in the preface, where the author gives his opinions regarding vaccines.

I shall begin this discussion by saying that I am not unbiased regarding vaccines. I do not support them. I didn’t start out my quest for knowledge with the objective of being against vaccinations. I am a registered nurse. I was taught how wonderful they are in school. However, when it came time to vaccinate my first child, I needed more information than the pathetic institutional instruction that lacked true depth. I began my research. I have been researching any and all information I could obtain for five years now, which has led me to my viewpoints regarding vaccines. I do not get paid to write reviews of any books. I do it because I enjoy it, and it is something I believe in. I therefore have no conflict of interest regarding vaccines. It does not affect me either way if you choose to vaccinate your children or not. I am passionate about this issue however. The more I researched, the more I began to realize how to wool has been pulled over our eyes as parents and indeed as a society as well. If I can do some small part of helping parents to protect their children and see the truth, then I will be satisfied. Let’s begin.

If you read this book, you must read the preface. I usually skip over them, but was drawn to this one. I have quite a lot of conflict with many statements made in the preface, so this review will spend a substantial amount of time discussing flawed statements made by the author.

The author begins by asking the question, “Should you vaccinate your child?” His goal of this book is to give you pros and cons in a balanced fashion so you may make an educated decision. I hope to shed light on why this very statement is problematic and impossible.

First, we’ll start with why parents are beginning to question vaccinations. I believe parents are starting to wake up and realize there are huge financial incentives and conflicts of interest regarding vaccines. Parents are wondering why there is a need for so many vaccines and have heard rumors of over 100 vaccines in the works. Vaccines coming out nowadays are for illnesses that are anything but serious, and the adverse events from vaccines is growing. This is not surprising when you realize the necessities it takes to be healthy, and I firmly believe one day the entire vaccine façade will come tumbling down as it will be impossible for the body to support the assault on its immune system from a vaccine’s toxicity.

The author seems to feel parents are beginning to question vaccines because they are confused, hearing conflicting information from different sources. While there is conflicting information certainly, parents are questioning vaccines because they are becoming more educated. They are beginning to listen to their instincts (which is a huge aspect of attachment parenting, a term coined by the author’s father William Sears by the way). There is some confusion in regards to vaccines, sure. This is because medical authorities continue to push vaccines even in light of growing concerns of toxicity and adverse events. The author seems to understand this in a way, but if you want a thoughtful discussion of why vaccines are harmful, you will not get it in this book. This is by the author’s own admission on the second page of the preface and is precisely what makes this book not worth your time if you’re looking to be truly informed. If you want to have a true discussion on vaccines, then it is essential that vaccine harmfulness is examined at length. What a shame.

I do not agree with the author’s assertion that parents feel confused because their friends are telling them they are crazy to vaccinate. I realize this was simply an example by the author, but I feel it is important to point out that parents who feel conflicted, confused, or make the decision not to vaccinate do not get support for it. Vaccinating is not questioned by society as a whole. People will call you crazy, irresponsible, and many others things for not vaccinating your children.

The author states he wrote this book because there was no other fully informed, unbiased vaccine books available. He then goes on to later state he “doesn’t want to leave you in the hands of anti-vaccine books”. He also states that “outside a doctor’s office, parents have nothing to read that doesn’t scare them away from vaccines.” WHAT?! Almost every mainstream publication about vaccines is in favor of them. Where does he get this notion? So, where else do concerned parents have to turn than anti-vaccine books to give them insight as to why people are concerned? I realize in the process of becoming informed regarding vaccines that it important to understand both sides of the vaccine debate. It is good to have all aspects of the debate. However, once becoming fully informed (as an author who writes a book on this topic should have done), there is no way to be completely unbiased. You will have to decide are you for or against vaccinations? If you can’t decide either way, then you still need more information. If you are delaying your children’s shots, then you are still for vaccines. If you are giving your child some vaccines, but skipping others, you are still for vaccines. I would also venture to say that if you are doing either of the above, that you are still somewhat uninformed regarding vaccinations and all the issues surrounding them. It is possible to be informed regarding vaccines, but not necessarily how toxins work in the body, the immune system, producing true health, etc. These things go hand in hand, and I am quite certain that once you would have studied all aspects of health, not just vaccinations, you would reach the conclusion that vaccines are harmful and cannot produce true health. Therefore, if the author is educated regarding vaccines and how to produce health, then there would be no way to be unbiased, and as you will see when reading this book, he is anything but unbiased. He is for vaccinations. Let’s move on.

“Are all vaccines equally important? No. You will learn that some diseases are more common and/or more deadly. Obviously, vaccines to prevent those diseases are more important, both for your child and from a public health standpoint. But a shot to prevent a disease that is extremely rare and usually harmless might be considered less important by some people. That’s not to say that such a vaccine is unnecessary.” This quote by the author sheds light on exactly where he stands with vaccines. He feels they are important. He accepts they may not all be of the same importance because diseases vary in severity (duh), but he has accepted that vaccines do what they are supposed to do in the body and that is to prevent a disease. So, if you are looking for intelligent discussion as to one of the controversies regarding vaccines in their ability to do what they are actually designed to do in the body, then you won’t find it here. For the reader’s awareness, there are current debates and much scientific evidence that 1) vaccines do not actually protect against the diseases as they are designed, 2) antibodies are not the only measure of immunity, 3) artificial and natural immunity are different, 4) vaccines disrupt the immune system, 5) vaccines are not responsible for the decline of diseases and a whole host of other debates. I am not going to debate these issues here as they are much too lengthy (these will be addressed on our website), but it is important to be aware that they exist. Personally, if I want to be fully informed, I would want a book that discusses these issues. Instead what we have here is another book that skirts over these issues. Time to pull out that anti-vaccine book.

“Most anti-vaccine books claim that all shots are bad, the diseases aren’t really anything to fear, and as long as you live a natural and healthy lifestyle, you don’t have to worry. I think this is a very irresponsible approach to the vaccine issue.”
Okay, now this quote was just a little below the belt for natural living experts. Having read almost every anti-vaccine book out there, I can safely say that this is not necessarily the case. Let’s take this piece by piece. Yes, most anti-vaccine books say that shots are bad. Of course, they are “anti”. And “bad” should more correctly be described as harmful. Furthermore, “harmful” can even more correctly be described as toxic. And yes, all vaccines are incredibly toxic to the body; this is undebatable. What is debated is if something so toxic to the body could actually produce health and prevent disease. Experts on toxins and their effects on the body consider this debate ridiculous, however.

Next, anti-vaccine books do not necessarily say the diseases are nothing to fear. Of course, new vaccines coming out are typically for all sorts of things now and not for diseases to fear, but rather trivial illnesses. Some diseases vaccines “supposedly” protect against are serious. They are not nearly as serious as is made to believe though and complications and death from these diseases are rare and were also rare when the diseases were more prevalent. What anti-vaccine books strive to do is dispel much of the fear mongering that is active in our society to coerce people into getting vaccines. People are brainwashed into believing these diseases are so terrifying and that the vaccine is the only way to prevent them. This notion is so utterly incorrect.

Furthermore, it is possible to fight off disease by a strong immune system, which is achieved directly by healthy and natural living and an avoidance of toxins that weaken the immune system. If you are healthy, you have a much greater chance of surviving an illness. We do not have to live in fear of disease. It is the unhealthy people that most have to be careful of disease. The key lies in finding out how best to support good health. So in essence, this is not irresponsible at all.

"Vaccines are beneficial in ridding our population of both serious and nonserious diseases.” Well, there you have it. I guess we won’t be getting any insightful information as to the debate if vaccines are actually responsible for the decline of diseases.

“But families do have the right in our country to take their chances without vaccines.” Personally, I feel completely comfortable “taking my chances” because I have learned what it takes to achieve health, and I certainly do not believe it can magically be produced by injecting a toxic substance directly into my bloodstream while bypassing all of my body’s natural defenses. This statement by the author is very emotionally charged for vaccines.

And yes, we do and should have the “right”. Of course, to obtain this right, we will have to put up with scare tactics, coercion, guilt, and a whole host of other possible threats such as denial of pediatrician choice, denial of public education, denial of certain jobs, and possibly even denial of our freedom and our children as now parents are facing the threat of prison time if they do not vaccinate their children. Obviously, this right is being threatened. Is this true freedom?

“Because I’ve taken ALL my information from the vaccine product inserts and from medical journals and textbooks…” Well, now there’s another problem. Do you think it possible that an entity grossly in favor of vaccines actually presents a true unbiased perspective? I realize I have only quoted part of one sentence here, though I assure you it is not taken out of context. This is his ONLY source of information by his own admission. Did he make a mistake when he said that? I would hope so because if you are really going to write a book that is unbiased than you are really going to have to look for other sources. Many of the controversial topics regarding vaccines do not appear in mainstream modern publications or scientific journals! And why would they? It is imperative to realize that vaccines are the bread and butter of our entire conventional medical system. There would be severe ramifications for the entire system if widespread public awareness led to a distrust of vaccines.

Now, something I actually not just like, but LOV E. “Doctors, myself included, learn a lot about diseases in medical school, but we learn very little about vaccines, other than the fact that the FDA and pharmaceutical companies do extensive research on vaccines to make sure they are safe and effective. We don’t review the research ourselves. We never learn what goes into making vaccines or how their safety is studied. We trust and take it for granted that the proper researchers are doing their jobs.” How enlightening and refreshing to hear a physician actually admit this. Next time you think your doctor is the ultimate authority and know all source of information, think again. Next time you are tempted to simply trust your doctor’s recommendation without researching for yourself, don’t. It is very true that almost all physicians, as well as nurses by the way, learn is about diseases and what to do to manage them. This in fact is what our entire allopathic medical establishment is based on. We do not actually learn about being healthy! Or how to produce health! Or how to prevent disease! Now, should we be trusting the FDA and pharmaceutical companies blindly? Well, here’s an example. The original Rotavirus vaccine had to be removed from the market after it was found to have extremely serious complications that 1) were life-threatening, and 2) were able to be linked directly to the vaccine. It is now known that the man responsible for directly overseeing this vaccine’s approval for use had the patent on the vaccine! He had a direct conflict of interest and huge financial incentive, and many children were injured or died because of this. So no, let’s not blindly trust “authority”. Who will look out for your children better than you can? Physicians? Pharmaceutical companies? The FDA?

“That’s why I’ve written this book. I’ve done the research. I’ve spent the last thirteen years learning everything I could about vaccines and the diseases they are designed to prevent, and I’ve put it all together in one place so you can get all your questions answered.” Whoa now. All my questions answered? Then why are there huge chunks of the vaccine debate left out? It does not matter if these components of debate are conclusive or even truthful, if you want to be fully informed, then study all aspects. Thirteen years? Maybe so, but I find it truthfully shocking that a person could really actually study all the issues of the vaccine debate and not be weary of them to say the least much less outright against them. I will admit that understanding the whole vaccine debate is difficult. It takes passion and a lot of study. It took me several years to feel like I fully understood the issue and a little bit longer before I could say without a doubt that I didn’t believe in any vaccines period. Maybe the problem is that he was only reading the vaccine inserts.

“There is little doubt that vaccines have played a useful role in eliminating some diseases from our population and limiting many others. Smallpox is a case in point.” Again, this reiterates his belief in vaccines, making his perspective anything but unbiased. There is a TON of doubt as to whether vaccines have been useful at all! Maybe they have been (I personally don’t think so) but it has not been proven conclusively so and a lot of evidence is starting to surface that perhaps they haven’t, but the point is not to make light of this issue! It is a valid part of the debate. Smallpox is not a case in point at all. This is what medical authorities want you to believe as it is the only small amount of evidence they actually have that vaccines do anything. There are many who after carefully examining data regarding smallpox do not believe the vaccine was responsible for irradicating the disease. There were other diseases such as the Plague and scarlet fever that also began to decrease while no vaccines were created for them.

“That’s what this book is all about-information. Open, honest, complete, and accurate information that all parents can use.” Well, why on Earth is it not provided then. Complete information? I think not. Many issues are left out! Accurate? Well, that is debatable. I am just failing to comprehend how you can write an unbiased source of information that is complete, open, honest, and accurate if 1) you strongly believe vaccines are important, 2) you only studied medical textbooks and journals, 3) you neglected to mention most of the concerns of vaccines, and 4) you have an assumed financial incentive to vaccinate children as that is a service you are paid to provide.

Now a closer look at the author’s A Note to Fellow Physicians.

“I know that much of this information in this book won’t be new to you.” Really, because it was just stated that doctors are ill informed regarding vaccines, and most do not do the research for themselves.

He also gives advice to fellow physicians not to turn away patients who decline vaccinations. How noble; noticing that we have a right to exercise autonomy. Let me ask you though. Do you really want to butt heads with your doctor on this issue or would you rather find a doctor that supports your viewpoint and decisions? Because if a physician has a severe lack of understanding regarding vaccines, I would venture a guess he also has a limited understanding of health in general , and I don’t know if I would even want his recommendations regarding my child.

“The way I see it, a family that doesn’t vaccinate needs a good doctor more than ever.” Now this statement just really frosts my cookies. Without going into a lengthy rant, let me just say, unvaccinated children as a whole are actually noticed to be healthier than their vaccinated counterparts. They get sick less often. They need care less often. They suffer from less debilitating diseases. So, what care are they in need of then? A good doctor is needed less if parents are informed. And what constitutes a good doctor? One that recommends you comply with the vaccine recommendations?

“When I set out to write this book, one of my goals was to take a close look at many of the theoretical problems with vaccines and to find conclusive evidence that showed these worries to be unfounded.” Okay, so in actuality, he was trying to not exactly write an unbiased book, but to purposefully prove that the issues of the great vaccine debate are unfounded. There is not conclusive evidence that the concerns of rising numbers of people are unfounded, which is why there is still such heated debate regarding vaccines that is growing.

“I discovered that most of the risks and controversies over vaccinations have been well researched in the medical literature, and there is scientific evidence to show that vaccines are safe and effective in preventing diseases.” Load of crap. Pardon me. Actually, many of the controversies are not given adequate attention nor have they been well researched. They are simply brushed off as quackery. Risks are intentionally minimized. There is overwhelming scientific evidence that vaccines are not safe and effective, making the author’s statement unintelligent at best. We as a society as well hold way too much confidence in what the vaccine scientific research tells us. Vaccines to me defy common sense. Scientific research is also always changing and in reality are all really just theories. We also know that nowadays, many studies are purposefully skewed in favor of a certain outcome due to financial incentive. It is imperative to be careful in which studies you trust.

“…and make our nation’s vaccine schedule the safest it can be.” The only way it can actually be completely safe is to abolish it! So by “safest” I interpret that to mean, let’s continue to vaccinate and just ignore the growing concern. That is really the only way to pretend that any vaccine schedule could potentially be interpreted as safe.

I could go on and on. This book is severely lacking and potentially dangerous. I expected more from the Sears family. Many parents trust them as an alternative source. A lot of ideas with attachment parenting go against the mainstream grind. Therefore, parents trust the Sears family if they are looking for alternative information. This book masquerades as a book with intelligent, well researched debate, which makes it more dangerous than books openly pro-vaccine. The only purpose this book serves is to further delude parents to trust anything but their own instincts and continue to believe in vaccination. What a perfect platform for the corrupt, profit driven, child maiming pharmaceutical companies than a book written by an “alternative” pediatrician. For heaven’s sake, please don’t let your research end with this book. If you really want a book to read, pick up the Vaccine safety Manual by Neil Z Miller. Now there’s a book that will help you be truly informed. Stay tuned for a review of that book shortly.

Help for the Harried Homeschooler By Christine M Field

2009-07-29T12:13:00.001-05:00

I must admit I did not enjoy this book. It’s a bit disappointing because I really did try to like it. It would have seemed to be a resourceful book based on the subject matter. It simply reads very slow paced, and I struggled with boredom. The subject matter covered deals more with issues surrounding homeschooling than actual homeschooling itself. For example, discipline is covered in detail, which is not necessarily an aspect I was interested in during my search of learning about homeschooling.

I felt like the tone of this book was more of a downer than other homeschooling books. When I read other books, I felt so excited and inspired. This book gave the impression that homeschooling is so difficult, stressful, and sacrificing. I just don’t view homeschooling that way. This book just seemed right in line with our modern societal thinking in that parenting is so hard and stressful. Quotes like “it takes a village” and “parenting is the hardest job you’ll ever do” sets the tone for society. I don’t really agree with this thinking that seems so pervasive in our culture. Now, the book does not use these exact quotes to the best of my recollection. This is simply the impression I was left with after reading this book.

This book is also very religious. God is mentioned all the time. So, faiths other than Christianity may also find this book difficult to relate to or even become annoyed that God is mentioned so many times. It personally doesn’t bother me, but in an effort to give an accurate review, I feel this should be mentioned.

The author does try to cover a wide range of topics in this book. However, I found it difficult to relate to the things she was saying. Nothing said really resonated with me. I can’t even find one sentence that I would consider quoting (and if you’ve read other reviews, you’ll notice how much I like good quotes!). There just wasn’t advice that I would apply to my own family nor any ideas that made me interested in continuing to read this book.

All in all, a fairly disappointing read. I would not recommend, which is sad because I do so love books. I just don’t like finishing one and feeling like I wasted my time.

Baby Laughs By Jenny McCarthy

2009-07-26T20:16:00.001-05:00

I have to give McCarthy more credit for this book; I liked it. Now, you probably won’t learn a whole lot of new stuff, and I’m sure you’ll survive if you don’t read it. But it is entertaining and funny. Everyone can relate to a lot of the things McCarthy mentions of the first year. Being a new mom, there are a lot of changes. It’s like no other time in your life. McCarthy takes a funny approach to these things to help lighten some of the situations. Not everything about recovering from having a baby is pleasant. This book, however, is balanced with the wonderful things a new baby brings.

McCarthy shares the same feelings as many mothers. I love how she mentioned the motherly instinct throughout the book. I’m real big on this, so I appreciated it. Of course, she ignored her motherly instinct when she circumcised her son. I do like how she mentions this topic, however. She talks about how hard it was for her to do it to her son and how she felt so bad and couldn’t even be there when they did it. Yes indeed, this was her instincts to protect her baby from harm and pain announcing themselves live and well. All women have this, whether we choose to listen or not is the issue. I would say something you can’t stand being present for is something that probably shouldn’t be done, especially if the majority of the world’s men are not circumcised, and there is no medical indication.

McCarthy also redeems herself in this book in the case of breastfeeding. She had some fears of breastfeeding due to having implants, therefore she chose not to. She readily acknowledges her ignorance in this book, and if I remember correctly, she plans to with her next baby. Good for her.

This book is also not as vulgar as the last one. It has some cursing that I could live without, but ultimately, it didn’t detract from the book as much as last time.
Now there are, of course, some cons to this book. It’s still written in the frame of mind as normal society. There’s nothing alternative or holistic about it. But really, did we expect that? There’s stuff on doctor visits and vaccines, medications- a lot about Tylenol, cribs, a disliking of cosleeping, and the like. There’s a lot about her difficult birth. A lot of things about this part I feel very strongly about, but I’ll refrain from getting into that again.

I do so wish McCarthy would quit referring to giving birth as blowing out your vagina. It is so graphic and also absurd. Some women do tear or are cut, but your vagina doesn’t just get blown out. Also, tearing and cutting are directly more likely with an epidural and coached pushing. There are plenty of ways to preserve that tissue. Many women don’t tear at all- though typically in a hospital birth, this is much less the case due to the way this stage of labor is managed. At least she didn’t say it quite so many times in this book.

There’s still a lot in this book about her a** and cellulite. She must have felt a lot of pressure to lose the baby weight. It’s not just Hollywood either. Many mainstream postpartum books focus on this. I personally was too consumed with breastfeeding and making good milk than to really worry about the weight. That can come later. Honestly, losing every bit of baby weight for us normal women is not a crisis.

Ultimately, this book is funny with a lot of good insight. It’s an easy and quick read. Don’t rush out and buy it though. Your local library probably has it.

Belly Laughs By Jenny McCarthy

2009-07-24T20:37:00.002-05:00

This is one of the books lining the pregnancy section of every bookstore. So I decided to read it. I neither expected it to be holistic nor give any real advice; in which case I was right. I can’t say that it was a boring read; it was fairly decent. It reads fast, which is a plus, but I also found it a waste of time and chances are if you follow our blog, you will too.

I have come to like Jenny McCarthy in recent years as she is very outspoken regarding vaccines and the injuries they cause. This thrills me. However, this book was written before all of that. In this book, McCarthy seeks to graphically illustrate and describe common discomforts surrounding pregnancy and birthing. Some of her descriptions are humorous, but she can be quite vulgar. No everyone’s cup of tea.

What I found with this book was that every pregnancy symptom is extensively exaggerated in an effort to be funny. I know there are some discomforts of pregnancy, believe me, I know. But gosh it’s really not that bad! I felt this book fell into our popular culture of things in which I take very seriously such as fear of birth, weight gain, epidurals, amongst other things. This book plays right into all too common misconceptions in our society surrounding pregnancy and birth with such phrases as “blowing your vagina out while squeezing something the size of a watermelon out.” For women truly scared of giving birth as are the majority of women in our country, this is not something that is helpful. What would have been helpful from this book would have been reassurances such as that your vagina is beautifully designed to stretch over your baby’s head in an incredible way with minimal pain while this happens.

I do like how honest she is in the book. I could do without the vulgarity. There are some things that are not pretty in regards to pregnancy. You will gain weight, maybe get stretch marks, and other things. But when McCarthy complains numerous times about her enormous a**, I have trouble feeling sympathetic. Many pregnant women feel very beautiful during their pregnancies despite not having the body of a previous Playmate. There are so many more important things to worry about than cellulite.

I would have liked the focus to be more on what a wonderful special time pregnancy is. There was not much mention of special ways to prepare for pregnancy or what a beautiful experience birth can be.

McCarthy also had a difficult birth. There is no education as to why her birth was difficult in this book, so I will elaborate. McCarty asks why would you forgo an epidural? Yes, this is all too common thinking in the pathetic birthing culture of our society. Well, I could list numerous reasons why someone would choose to forgo an epidural; our website goes into extensive detail. Interestingly, McCarthy ended up with a Cesarean section after 2.5 hours of pushing. Her baby’s heart rate was dropping. This having been undoubtedly caused by the epidural. It would be far too easy to think this doesn’t occur that often, but unfortunately, it is remarkably common. And do you know what women think after this happens? They just weren’t made to push the baby out as McCarthy admits was her fear the entire labor (which does interfere with labor). I could carry on, but for the sake of time, if you’re curious to know more, check out our giving birth section of our website.

McCarthy lost even more points in my book when she complained about the pain of engorgement caused by not breastfeeding. I have come to have little tolerance for those who don’t breastfeed by choice of laziness, noninterest, etc. I have deep compassion for issues related to the difficulty of breastfeeding, and I fully realize some women do have quite a hard time or are not able. This does not excuse the majority of women in our culture. It’s supposed to hurt if you don’t breastfeed because you are supposed to breastfeed!

Another issue that is important to address in this review is the simple fact that many of the related pregnancy discomforts mentioned by McCarthy can be prevented by having good nutrition. I wouldn’t expect McCarthy to talk intelligently on the subject of nutrition, but preterm labor, swollen ankles, and much else can be prevented from good nutrition. Certain things like swollen ankles may be common during pregnancy, but this does not mean they are normal or unpreventable.

In the end, this book may give a few pity laughs, but ultimately, you probably won’t learn much.

Placenta: The Gift of Life by Cornelia Enning

2009-07-14T09:10:00.001-05:00

This book is rather interesting. I realize it is not going to be a book everyone is going to be interested in reading. There are parts of this book that were a bit slow paced and a little boring to read. I feel the wording will make it difficult for some people to want to continue reading it. It is also only available from Midwifery Today and will cost you $26.90.

If you can get past those things, the book does have some things going for it. For one, it is very short and can be read quickly. Contained within the shortness, though, is a vast amount of knowledge regarding the placenta that is mind blowing. One thing is for certain; the placenta is an amazing organ. The book contains information on what other cultures do with the placenta. It quickly becomes clear that that United States is one of the only countries that treat the placenta a waste and consider it gross. Other cultures honor and respect the placenta. The many things cultures figure out what to do with the placenta is astounding. They use it for all sorts of rituals, medicine, and as a protection. Many cultures feel that because the placenta is made from the same tissue as the baby, it is closely connected to the baby. Reading all the things other cultures do with the placenta makes me feel disappointed in our culture. The section for the United States is very short and states something to the effect of the placenta not being recognized as having any medicinal effects. Placentas are thrown out as “medical waste”. I know a lot of people are thinking, “Well, no kidding, placentas should be thrown out; they are gross or could potentially transmit diseases.” I know our culture finds placentas gross, but that is what I find so sad.

Besides rituals, the placenta supposedly has many medicinal properties. A little research into placentas will reveal that they are great for warding away postpartum depression, increasing milk supply, and recovering from birth more quickly. These things are the obvious things. This book goes way more into depth as to all the amazing things a placenta can do. It is very interesting, although some things I found myself surprised that the placenta could possibly be responsible for, and I did wonder if all of the things mentioned were actually true. The book is very well referenced, however, so it is possible.

I bought this book particularly because I was interested in finding out how to make “placenta pills”. This book has recipes for all types of things that can be done with the placenta. Some people eat the placenta raw. Other people cook it. Apparently, the aroma of the placenta is inviting when cooked. Other women mention they felt drawn to ingest the placenta. I realize this is too far out for most in our culture, but placenta pills are typically more accepted.

I personally felt this book was very enlightening regarding the placenta. It can certainly change a person’s opinion. After reading this book, it will become obvious the placenta is an organ that deserves respect and reverence. Hopefully, our culture will begin to make changes in the way it is treated.

So You’re Thinking About Homeschooling by Lisa Whelchel

2009-07-09T18:29:00.003-05:00

I truly loved this book. I know this has been a running theme on my book reviews lately, but I can’t help it. This one is good. Lisa Whelchel grew up as an actress of the TV show The Facts of Life. She now homeschools her three children and is the author of several books. This book is written in a very clever manner. Whelchel takes her experiences and stories of homeschooling families she has met and creates 15 different fictitious families who each demonstrate various aspects of homeschooling. I love the imagination and creativity in her writing. Each family offers brief insight into their homeschooling lives, and I found myself intrigued by each one of them while also being able to take something of value from each different experience.

Whelchel is a Christian, and this book is endorsed by Focus on the Family, a popular Christian organization. While it is a great book for any Christian homeschooling family to read, it also offers plenty for those of differing faiths as well. Christianity is not mentioned in every family’s story. This book offers valuable insight to the diversity of homeschoolers, and most importantly, gives confidence in our ability to homeschool our children. So many wonderful pieces of information are contained in this book that for this review I am going to simply quote my favorite parts.

“We were having so much fun you couldn’t have paid me to send my kids to school.”

“I remembered thinking on Hunter’s first day of kindergarten thinking, ‘Why am I sending him off now just when he’s getting really fun to being around?’ As he got older I thought, ‘ And why does the school get the best part of his day, and I get the dregs when he’s tired and cranky and I have to force him to do hours of homework? They have him for seven hours- why can’t they get all the work done in that amount of time?”

“Time to get to know your kids is a luxury of inestimable value.”

“I came home to spend more time with my children and ended up becoming best friends with my husband. Who would have guessed that homeschooling could be good for your marriage?”

“Homeschooling is as much about home as it is about schooling.”

“Homeschool children whose mothers had a little more of smattering of education beyond high school scored nearly as high as kids whose mothers had a college degree and teaching credentials! Not bad, huh?”

“The average homeschooled child scored 87 percent on standardized tests, compared to the average public school student who scored 50 percent.”

“I knew that I had done my absolute best to teach my girls how to be kind and respectful, but it is hard to compete with the world’s influence when your child is away from you eight hours a day.”

“We may have begun to homeschool because of peer pressure, substandard education, and the bad attitudes our girls were picking up in school. But what will keep us homeschooling are things like seeing the girls rediscover the joy of learning, the rebuilding of family relationships, and having the privilege of once again being the primary influence in our children’s lives.”

“I believe that I’m the best teacher for my children… because there is nobody in this world who cares more about our children’s future than (my wife) and me.”

“I’m not interested in seeing my children either convert or adapt to what passes for the needs of society these days.”

“I’m not ashamed to admit that my educational goals for (my children) do not include making sure (they) fit into society.”

“I just wanted to pass the test and get on to the next book so that eventually I could get on with real life. I was just marking time in school, waiting for life to begin. I don’t want that for my kids. I want them to be thrilled about life now and to be prepared for what lies ahead.”

“If you want something done right, then do it yourself.”

“There is no way a teacher can adjust her teaching style twenty-five times a day to meet the needs of everyone in her class… I can give my children the individualized time, teaching, and learning tools they need.”

“There is a bond between homeschoolers that transcends geographically defined neighborhoods to form an instant community.”

“We found there’s lots to be learned from just living!”

“It is enough for me to know that my children are growing into sensitive, self confident, independent young people- and I have homeschooling to thank for that.”

“Before we had children of our own, I worked as a preschool teacher. I saw the same kids from seven o’clock in the morning until six o’clock at night, and I had wondered why their parents even bothered having children at all.”

“I wasn’t willing to give some stranger twice as much time as I got in the day to shape and mold my child.”

“I love learning now! And my children do too.”

“Many of the finest schools are now recruiting homeschoolers. Why? Because they tend to be self-motivated and more involved in community service and extracurricular activities, and they consistently score higher on standardized achievement tests than their public school counterparts.”

“These kinds of lessons in sacrifice, compassion, service, and integrity cannot be taught in the classroom situation.”

“What does it profit a mom if she gains the whole world and loses her children, their hunger for knowledge, their compassion, and their appreciation for things that are of real value (as opposed to what the typical American child considers important). Sometimes less really is more.”

“What I soon discovered, however, was that home provided him freedom within a structure. His classroom was just the opposite, offering confinement within chaos.”

“Conventional schools can be failure traps for children who, by nature, are not quiet, compliant morning people able to concentrate for long periods of time.”

“There will be some who will look back on their traditional education and think, ‘Ninety percent of what I’m using in my life and career is stuff that I learned on my own, either outside of school or after I graduated.”

“I had read a book encouraging parents not to push their kids to grasp concepts before they were ready. I like this philosophy. Why do schools teach and reteach the same things over and over again every year throughout the elementary grades? Doesn’t it make more sense to wait until the child is ready and then teach it to him once?”

“Children who love to read are usually very easy to unschool because their own passion for learning is often enough to motivate them. Most learning can be accomplished by reading good books.”

“If we are supposed to making a difference in the world, what better way to do it than by training our children to become beacons to the world?”

“We don’t think God was crazy when He said children are a reward.”

“Many parents who choose to do so because they want to be the primary influence in their kids’ lives.”

“Indeed, our responsibility, I like to think of it as our privilege, to train our children and shape their character is the main reason we homeschool.”

“You can’t schedule a ‘teachable moment’ and the less time you spend with your children, the fewer opportunities you have to seize these moments when they present themselves.”

“I don’t want to leave it up to someone else to make sure my children develop good character traits in addition to good study habits.”

“Do I really want (my kids) learning evolution as fact, politically correct agendas, written history, tolerance as a subject, and how to put on a condom?”

As you can see, there are many wonderful things said in this book. It is not a book about how to “start” homeschooling, guides to curriculum, various laws, or resources. It simply offers wonderful knowledge of why parents choose to homeschool and how many of them make it work. If nothing else, you’ll take away the vast diversity of families homeschooling works for and may just be inspired to try it yourself.

Your Best Birth By Ricki Lake and Abby Epstein

2009-07-05T22:07:00.001-05:00

I must admit that when this book first came out, it took me a while to get up the urge to read it. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVED their film ‘The Business of Being Born”. Phenomenal movie. So, I really can’t say why I didn’t rush out and get this book. Perhaps I was a little worn out from birth books as I have read quite a lot. I wasn’t sure how this book would be different or what it would bring to the table. Well, now after reading it, I can say that it does bring a lot to the table. It was a great book! I feel this book reaches out to women, perhaps even a different type of woman than who typically reads books on birth. This is a good book for anyone to read actually.

I am a huge advocate of natural childbirth and homebirth, so I read a lot of those types of births. This book is not necessarily about that, which is why it can appeal to a more diverse group of women. This book is different in that it is meant to educate women regarding their choices in a truly informed way known as “informed consent”. This information should be available from hospitals and physicians, though women do not usually get the full picture from these sources, and that is precisely where this book fits in. I can see how this book would truly be an eye opener for many women who were not previously interested in this topic.

Well written and thought provoking; it is not a difficult read. Don’t skip over the foreword by Jacques Moritz M.D, or the preface. Both these sections contain very interesting info worth reading. Near the end of the preface, a wonderful point is made by Abby Epstein. She states “birth is the perfect introduction into motherhood. It is unpredictable; you can plan and dream, but in the end, your baby may have a different idea.” I found this very insightful because it is true. Birth is not predictable and may not happen exactly how a woman would like, but motherhood isn’t really predictable either, so therefore, birth is exactly what a woman needs to experience when becoming a mother.

At the end of the introduction, there is a great summary of the intentions of this book, which I wholeheartedly agree with. “This book is not intended to lecture you on the way you should probably have your baby, but it is about helping you overcome your fears, the pressures, and the fads, and ultimately allowing you to have an empowering and beautiful experience to share with your family. This book will serve as a reminder that giving birth is something that women instinctually know how to do, and that you can tap into your own innate sense of power to take back the birth experience.” What’s not to like about that? If you’ve read the giving birth section on our website, you’ll notice that a lot of that sounds exactly like something I would say.

Another part I liked is at the very beginning of the book as well in a section entitled Know Your Options. It basically gives a depiction of a typical hospital birth experience. Having worked as a labor and delivery nurse, I can say that they are quite accurate, which I found absolutely refreshing. Many people feel safer in the hospital and have their baby there for all the “what ifs”. It seems that far too many women, however, have no idea what the hospital experience is like, and unless you’ve done your research, you get kind of a shock once you get there. And if the things they describe during their scenario are things that you want, more power to you, but the point is to be informed and have choices! That’s all women are asking for.

In addition to the hospital scenario, this section also gives a tale of a typical birth in the Netherlands. The Netherlands have very good birth outcomes and a great maternity care system. I love how this story was included.

A great point is made in the first chapter that points out something very important about birth. “When most other mammals give birth, they retreat to dark, private, protected places where they can labor in peace and safety. (Think of dogs and cats going under the bed to have their litters.) Americans go to the bright lights, bustle, chaos, and strangers of the hospital. We might rationally believe that the hospital is a safe place because, if disaster strikes, there are professionals and equipment to save mom and baby, but our mammalian brain may believe otherwise.” Beautifully stated.

This book is so full of great points. “Birth is portrayed as an out of body experience.” Isn’t this so true? Women are typically out of touch with their bodies. Birth feels surreal, especially when it is numbed with anesthesia. This has a lasting effect! This is why I am such an advocate for natural childbirth! I have never felt more alive than during my labor. I have absolutely never felt such an intensity and power within my own body that it is impossible not to feel empowered after a natural experience such as this. I didn’t know I had anything so strong inside my own body! My senses were so heightened with such an awareness, and there is no question that is was real. It’s amazing.

“If you ask women who have had C-sections why they did so, most will say that something was wrong with them.” I love this statement because it is so true! This is exactly what is wrong with birth in our country in that women think there is something wrong with them. This propels fear! There is nothing wrong with women, and babies are not growing so big these days that women just can’t push them out. This is so unbelievably false. Women are designed by our very nature to give birth. It is a beautiful design. I love that this book picked up on this fundamental problem.

Another great point from the book: “Almost all research on this subject shows that anything other than an unmedicated birth impacts the rate of breastfeeding, the success of establishing breastfeeding, and the duration.” Wow! That’s profound. Research like this puts things into a lot different of a perspective. This is why it is so important to be informed. Any type of pain medication, whether it is the epidural or not, can affect breastfeeding. This does not necessarily equate to breastfeeding being ruined or impossible from one dose of Stadol. Certainly not, however, medications are not benign. It is amazing to think that choosing an epidural on a whim during labor when you’re having difficulty focusing on making decision in the first place could impact something, even severely, for the next entire year. I feel many women who experienced breastfeeding relationships that were difficult because of the way it started out following labor would have tried to stick it out without an epidural if they truly knew how breastfeeding could be impacted. It is important to realize in the intensity of the moment at the end of labor, it is very easy to break down and get the epidural, and it is certainly difficult to understand anything in the long term at that particular time. Labor is fairly short in the grand scheme of life. It’s sad that such a short time could affect something for so long into the future.

Something I really liked about this book is the way it is written. I think it will appeal to a great many women as it reads very easily and states facts in a nonjudgmental, nonaggressive way. It is informing and enlightening without being too medical or technical, which makes it easy to follow. I can also say that the information presented is quite correct.

There was one aspect though that I feel compelled to address. In a box on page 133, there is an option presented as a drug free way to induce. I feel it is a little misleading, and I would just like to offer my personal experience. The option presented is a cervical balloon, more commonly called a foley bulb. It is a balloon of sorts that is inserted into the vaginal and past the cervix, then filled with saline. The bulb then exerts force against the cervix and once it falls out, technically the woman would then be dilated 3-4 cm. There are a lot of problems with foley bulbs, and personally many nurses feel they are barbaric. Many hospitals don’t even use them. The foley bulb applies a force against the cervix because the woman or the nurse tugs on it about every 15 minutes. It basically manually stretches the cervix. It gives false hope because even if you are then dilated 4 cm, you are not in labor. Some practitioner’s feel it can kick start a woman’s labor. In rare cases, I have seen this happen. But for the majority of women, this is not the case. If you are dilated that far, you may never actually get into active labor and 24 hours later, your doctor may be in your room talking about why you need a Cesarean section because you’re just not dilating. Well no kidding if you are not in labor. Foley bulbs are almost always in my experience used in conjunction with a lessened dose of Pitocin and when the foley bulb falls out, the Pitocin dose begins to increase. Foley bulbs are also almost always inserted before the woman has an epidural, and for many women is quite uncomfortable when placed. I personally am not for foley bulbs. Though I don’t like inductions, and I don’t like medication, it has been my experience that foley bulbs do not present a very good alternative, which is unfortunate. All the foley bulb does is pull and tug and force the cervix open. It does not make contractions happen, and it does not make the cervix soft or ripe, which means it is ready for labor. It also does not bring the baby’s head down lower into the birth canal as contractions do, so that the baby’s head can exert pressure on the cervix and cause it to dilate. The foley bulb presents quite a few problems, ad personally I would refuse it if I were to be induced unless all the other possible alternatives had been exhausted.

I really did enjoy this book, and my differing experience with foley bulbs is really the only thing in this book that I didn’t agree with. I absolutely loved the chapter about bonding with your baby. It was fantastic. My biggest issue is the maternal fetal separation that happens in hospitals, and I feel this book did a phenomenal job addressing this. Separating a baby from its mother immediately upon being born makes me madder than a hornet! Since the book puts some things so well, I am just going to include a few quotes from that chapter.

“The poor defenseless baby gets pulled out into the glaring lights of the delivery room, rubbed with rough towels, jostled onto the table, and generally treated as if he were unable to feel what is being done to him. It’s the very definition of a rude awakening.” This is amazingly accurate. Many people do not realize that babies are fully aware and present for their birth. I feel the hospital staff may not realize this because most women in the hospital opt for epidurals, which in turn makes babies come out groggy, and most have their eyes closed. I didn’t actually understand that babies are very much present until after I looked at my very alert daughter after our natural birth. Nothing could be more convincing to me than seeing her big eyes look up at me. She was absolutely aware.

“The reason it’s important for the baby to be attached to you… is that during those precious first moments after birth, you are forming a bond that will sustain you during the difficult first months of caring for the baby.” Yep, that bonding is actually a complex process of hormones that need not be disturbed. Mothers and babies need to be bonded. This doesn’t mean that if for circumstances out of your control you may not get to see and bond with your baby right away that your won’t ever bond with your baby, and you will certainly still love your baby, but many women report bonding being much more difficult if that first bonding period is interrupted.

Okay and the epilogue has some great quotes as well, though the whole thing is absolutely worth reading!

“The recurring story we hear over and over is from the woman who realized after her first birth that she needed to be much more informed and proactive for the second one. Many times this second birth is an opportunity for personal growth and often heals the psychological wounds from the first one.” This is so beautifully put. I can personally attest to this. Oh what I wish I had known for my first, and at the same time, I feel so thankful to have learned a lot before my second.

“Many parents are starting to understand that the birth of their child is something that can be ‘taken away’ from them. It takes a lot of research and guidance to make sure you are with providers who will respect your family’s birth plan.” It is sad that this is so. It is time we take back our births and make them empowering, not regretful.

“Today there is a sad disconnect between a ‘safe’ birth and ‘empowered’ birth, as if you needed to give up one to achieve the other.”
There are many other great things said in the epilogue. I highly recommend reading it.

All in all, this book took me by surprise. I must say I am quite impressed. It has quickly come to the top of my list for recommended reading. Wow to Ricki and Abby.

The Homeschooling Option: How to Decide When It’s Right for Your Family by Lisa Rivero

2009-07-03T17:20:00.004-05:00

I ended up liking this book much more than I thought I would. I thought it would be a very factual book that is always a little slow and boring to read. It was very factual, but I ended up identifying with and agreeing with so many things that were said. I could literally quote almost the entire book; it really stood out to me. I will try to summarize some of the key points. It is definitely worth the read if you are considering homeschooling. I learned new information in here that I haven’t in any other books.

The first point on homeschooling that really stood out to me was that homeschooling appeals to a very diverse group of people. I love how this was pointed out as I have begun to realize this myself. Homeschooling used to be thought of as only for hippies or religious freaks. It is now being noted that homeschoolers are from all walks of life; all socioeconomic classes, all ethnicities, all religions, conservatives, liberals, anyone. This should speak volumes.

Another point I loved about homeschooling is the realization that not all children learn at the same pace; that grades, scores, testing, amongst other things are unnecessary. Children do not have to conform to arbitrary grade levels with homeschooling. They meet milestones in their own pace and learn about things as they are interested. Not all homeschoolers take this approach of course, but there is a growing trend in this area. I suppose this type of learning would be correctly termed unschooling. This book gives a bit of history of homeschooling and unschooling. It can really be summarized as trusting children to lead their own education, while offering some oversight and guidance. This is helpful because children have all types of learning styles, and homeschooling allows them to learn at their own pace in a relaxed, secure, healthy way. Children also learn better about things they are interested in at any given moment. Children learn no different than adults do.

Here’s a quote from the book that I love and sums up exactly how I feel about homeschooling.

“When families entrust children to schools, they are giving up control over not only six or more hours of the child’s day, but what subjects the child will study, how those subjects will be taught, how well the child’s approach to learning will be understood and accommodated, and whether or how much the child will be tested. For many families, especially if they see their children struggling or not thriving in school, this loss of control feels like an abdication of parental responsibility. They feel a duty to provide children with the education they deserve."

Now some more quotes.

“Homeschooling gives children the opportunity to soar in their areas of strength and take their time with more challenging subjects.”

“Once we understand that children learn state history in fourth grade because to do it then is convenient for the schools, not necessarily for the children, we can make a decision for our own child based on the child’s needs and interests, not on someone else’s timetable of what every fourth grader should know.”

Another topic of interest is that of violence and safety in the schools. The book paints a picture of what some children must go through to learn and obtain an education. Instances of children walking through metal detectors to get into the school, police officers stationed in and around the school, amongst other things are mentioned as real experiences by children. These precautions may be necessary measures, but personally I feel sad so many children will come to equate that with the realities of education. This is a tough environment to inspire a life-long love of learning.

There are also examples in the book of how chaotic our modern day is. Families are so busy with activities and achievements that they barely have time to breathe. Homeschooling gives a way to “step off the merry go round” as the book puts it. This is one of the best parts of homeschooling to me. It allows for families to have much more time to spend together, while still having plenty of time to do some activities and also obtain an education. I feel this is a win win situation.

Great points continue in this book with the realization that if someone else educates a child other than the parents, it can create complications for the parents in the long run even into the child’s adulthood. The book calls the problem the “helicopter” parent, not knowing what their role is in their children’s lives, not knowing how they are needed or wanted, not knowing what is too much or too little. I can see how this could have the potential to be a problem because parents give up a lot of power over their decisions regarding their children when they choose public education. I also feel parents become less in touch with their instincts, and therefore this leads to the parent feeling less capable of knowing how to be involved. What exactly is the role of the parent in regards to education when a child is schooled outside of the home?

There are chapters in this book devoted to homeschooling teens, homeschooling with special needs, laws in each state (as well as resources in the back), and a Q&A.

Something I especially liked about this book is the quotes used throughout from various children that are or were homeschooled and various parents that homeschool. It was great to hear the experiences of real people. There was a lot of wisdom in most of the quotes.

There are so many ways to homeschool and no one way is correct. There are also many reasons people choose to homeschool. This book covers quite a bit and gives great insight to many questions people may have. A great read!

A Charlotte Mason Primer: A Simplified Approach to Real Education by Cindy Rushton

2009-06-23T22:38:00.002-05:00

This book was delicious. I loved it. If you want to know about the Charlotte Mason method, then this is the book to read! I feel so happy to have found it. There were things in this book that really helped open my eyes to the way children learn and how to go about homeschooling. I have found that there are many things that I love about Charlotte Mason’s philosophies, and this book gave me a lot of confidence.

This book starts with a quote by Mason; “Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life.” This quote struck a cord with me and why exactly it pertains to homeschooling. I grew up feeling like school actually stifled my learning. One of my goals with homeschooling is to create a love of learning in my children. This book shares great insight as to how to do this.

I now feel as though I am more equipped to homeschool. I also learned that I love Charlotte Mason’s views of education! I feel I have a much clearer understanding of what her philosophy was all about. This book is written in an upbeat and easy to follow format.

There were many things I liked in this book that I will try to incorporate into our family’s homeschooling experience.

The first aspect that stuck out to me is the advice to use only “whole” books. So many textbooks contain only tiny snippets of information from all different sources. Instead of learning only a tiny bit about things in which a child will never remember, I love the concept of reading and learning about one subject in its entirety. Letting children spend their time reading entire books by great authors will help them gain a depth of insight not found in standard textbooks.
I also love the stress of importance on nature, and the need for children to be in nature every day. Children are so far removed from nature in our typical society. This is sad. Children will develop a deep respect for the Earth if they spend time seeing its beauty.

I like the fact that homeschooling allows for children to have a lot of balance in their lives. Everything they do can be a learning experience, but not all their time will need to be spent studying. It really should only take up a small part of their day, especially at a young age. Children need time to play and think, and I feel this is just what homeschooling enables.

I also liked the book’s advice to get to know their children and their individual learning styles. So many parents are so far removed from their children’s learning. I truly do not feel comfortable with having someone else responsible for my child’s learning. I feel it is my responsibility as well as everything else concerning my child. Homeschooling also enables a child to really know their parent. Many families are closer because of homeschooling, and the time spent together is wonderful. There is a lot of misconception about children not receiving socialization if they are homeschooled. This is false. Children still have opportunities to socialize outside of the home, but truly parents are the best socialization for a child there is. When children are around peers all day, children the same age as them, it is somewhat a case of the blind leading the blind. Children do and act as their peers do. Homeschooled children are often noted that they are more likely to think for themselves before reaching a conclusion.

This book gives a lot of examples of activities and an outline of a typical day of homeschooling in their family. I loved to hear someone else’s ideas. There were many ideas that showed how enriching, rewarding, and wholesome homeschooling can be.

There is a lot of information packed into this little book! I recommend it to anyone considering homeschooling. It is a good resource.

A Charlotte Mason Education: A Homeschooling How To Manual By Catherine Levison

2009-06-21T14:10:00.001-05:00

I must say this book was a dry read. It was difficult to get through and difficult to follow. It is short; only 70 something pages. Had it been longer, I probably wouldn’t have finished it. Basically, it is a book dedicated to the Charlotte Mason way of homeschooling. Charlotte Mason was a very prominent homeschooling figure in the 1800’s. She has a lot of good concepts, and I feel her way of homeschooling is interesting. I do not yet know if her method would be something we will follow in our own home.

This book is essentially a how to manual as stated in the title. Charlotte Mason wrote several volumes of work to outline her philosophy, and this book serves the purpose of condensing Mason’s original volume to give a brief overview. Almost too brief. After reading this book, I do not feel I understand the Charlotte Mason way of education any better than I did before. I feel this is attributed to the way the book is written. I found the writing rather choppy. There were examples used for many things that I had difficulty referencing to what the author’s point actually was. Quotes of Charlotte Mason chosen by the author seemingly had no relevance to the discussion at hand.

If perhaps you had already read all of Charlotte Mason’s original volumes of work, then it would be easier to follow this book, which would somewhat defeat the purpose. I feel this book may be more useful if you are already quite familiar with homeschooling and/or Charlotte Mason. This book did not give me much information in homeschooling in our modern day. I suppose I am in search more for homeschooling information such as the varying requirements by states, resources available, applicable ideas for homeschooling, amongst other things. I will continue my quest until I find resources such as these that give me the confidence and understanding to homeschool.

A few points of Charlotte Mason’s philosophy that I did enjoy are her idea of only having a child do one activity for 15 minutes and move on. This prevents the child from daydreaming and wasting time. I found this to be very refreshing. She also puts a lot of emphasis on the need to let children be children. It is important for children to spend much time playing as this is how they also learn. Mason also feels it very important for children to learn about nature and be in touch with nature. I love this as it is something very important to me.

In conclusion, this was not the book for me or what I was looking for. I was a bit disappointed in it, but have not ruled out the Charlotte Mason way of homeschooling. I will continue to find other sources that highlight her work as I would like to have a better understanding of this subject.

Vaccines: Are They Really Safe and Effective? By Neil Z. Miller

2009-06-16T20:51:00.007-05:00

I love this book. I read it years ago as one of the first books in my search for vaccine truths. I reread it now for the benefit of writing a review on it. The best part is that the library typically does carry this one, though it certainly wouldn’t be a waste to spend your money on. This book is easy to read and shorter than most vaccine books out there, making it to the point. Don’t let the length fool you though. It has quite a bit of information and gets the main points across clearly.

The bulk of this book is devoted to covering each vaccine and the disease it is supposed to prevent. For each disease, there is a description of the actual disease such as the main symptoms of the disease, groups of the population more at risk for contracting the disease, etc. I feel this part is especially useful in helping to alleviate many parents fears regarding these illnesses. We are led to believe that these illnesses are excruciatingly terrible, but in truth, they are not. Many of the so called vaccine preventable diseases are actually simple illnesses (not diseases) that come and go without lasting effects. The severity of many of these illnesses with symptoms of sterility from mumps or paralysis from polio for example are actually exceedingly rare. Many people do not realize this because of the scare tactics used in this country by medical authority. For example, did you know that in 95% of cases of polio there are actually no symptoms of illness or the symptoms presented are simply the same as those of the common cold? I think it is becoming very important for parents to realize the truths regarding the severity of the illnesses because 1) our generation is not as familiar with these illnesses, and 2) our children have a much greater likelihood of chronic disease such as autism, cancer, asthma, autoimmune disorders, eczema, and many others.

This book also does a fantastic job relaying facts in regards to reactions from vaccines and chronic diseases. There is not a whole lot of discussion on how exactly vaccines actually disrupt the immune system (which they do, but you’ll have to look to other sources for this), but there is discussion on side effects from vaccines, reactions to vaccines, and how vaccines are implicated in many of the chronic diseases. Medical authorities do not want links established with vaccines and many of the new chronic, scary diseases that our society is now faced with. The truth is though that chronic diseases are rising at an alarming rate, and we must look to all sources as possible causes, instead of dismissing valid concerns instantly because there is a financial incentive to do so.

This book gives accounts of many parent’s experiences regarding vaccinating their children and reactions that have also occurred. We hear there are parents out there that believe vaccines are responsible for their children’s issues, but hearing stories first hand makes it much more real and undeniable, even if medical authorities do not yet want to admit vaccines can cause harm. (interestingly, vaccines injuries are on the rise that our government had to create a compensation program for these injuries. Injuries from vaccines are also extremely underreported. More discussion of this will appear on our website).

Another point I felt was important in this book was that live virus vaccines can cause the illness that they are designed to prevent. It is possible to cause it in the child or person vaccinated, but there is also a process called secondary transmission of the virus, in which the virus can be transmitted to someone in contact with a recently vaccinated person. Therefore, the illness can be spread from someone recently vaccinated to another person. This is information not widely pointed out, but very well documented, and I felt thankful this book touched base on this fact.

Another great point in the vaccine debate covered quite well in this book is the effectiveness of vaccines. Natural immunity is much different from the immunity conferred from vaccines. Vaccines are thought to be effective if antibodies are produced in the body following vaccine administration. Titers can be drawn to check levels of antibodies (which is a simple blood test), and if they are above a certain level, a person is thought to be immune. Immunity is much more complex than that. This book documents many instances in which outbreaks have occurred in vaccinated populations. Booster shots are required for most all shots as vaccines do not confer lifetime immunity. This is problematic for many reasons as outlined well in this book. One superb example of this can be evidenced with the chicken pox vaccine. The vaccine is administered to young children at a time when the illness is relatively uncomplicated. The effectiveness of this vaccine is now known to wear off and a booster is recommended. However, because of this vaccine (as is the case with other vaccines as well), the illness is now occurring in the adult population, where more complications and severity of illness are present.

It is also clearly evidenced in this book that the infectious diseases were in decline before vaccines were introduced due to reasons of better sanitation among others. This is also an important point in the ever growing vaccine debate.

If you learn best with charts and graphs, then this is the book for you. Examples and statistics found in the text are also highlighted in various charts and graphs on most pages for the visual learner. This book has no shortage of statistics either.

A little background info on Mr. Miller: he is a medical research journalist. His interest in vaccines came when he was faced with the reality of the decision on whether or not to vaccinate his son. He therefore as a concerned parent began to do any and all research he could and felt compelled to share his findings. I like this because I find that is how the truth is most often discovered; by concerned parents who are not okay with letting medical authorities coerce them into vaccinating their children blindly without truly informed consent as to the risks verse the possible benefits.

Vaccines are very heavily debated and controversial. Discussions of concern regarding vaccines are usually brushed off as quackery. This book is helpful in that it is well documented with sources and studies done in recognized and respected medical literature as to potential problems with vaccines.

Ultimately, I feel this book makes many important points in the vaccine debate and would be useful for anyone to read if they desire more knowledge in this area. It is well written and thoroughly researched.

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Saying No to Vaccines

2009-06-11T20:57:00.000-05:00

Vaccines are quickly becoming one of the most controversial issues of our times. Of course, they have always been controversial, but parents are beginning to question the necessity of over 100 different vaccines by the time their child reaches age five. This is a much needed book. I highly recommend it to every single person. I do not think one person should be excluded from reading this book.

Written by Dr Sheri TenPenny, this book details an extremely thorough and comprehensive review of the current research regarding vaccinations. Dr. TenPenny knows more about vaccinations than the average person and has reached the same conclusion most people do when they study vaccines in depth; vaccines are toxic substances that have absolutely no place in the human body. They are neither safe nor effective. Dr. TenPenny chronicles exactly why this is so and sheds light on why the general public is being lied to and manipulated to believe injecting toxic chemicals directly into the bloodstream could possibly result in health.

There are many arguments for vaccines. In fact, the entire mainstream media is littered with brainwashing regarding vaccines. The information presented by the mainstream media is not objective. It is actually purposefully orchestrated to coerce the general public into getting their vaccines without a thought as to what they are actually doing. Very few people actually know the ingredients in vaccines, much less what these ingredients have been proven to do in the body. It is truly stunning that most people do not even know there are questionable ingredients in vaccines. The vaccine ingredients can be plainly found on the CDC’s website and are also listed in the appendix of this book.

In this book, Dr. TenPenny has exhaustively reviewed the current research. She also devotes an entire chapter to dispel the 25 most common arguments to support vaccines. This chapter is truly genius and desperately needed in our society. It is my hope that with this book, parents will begin to follow their instincts regarding vaccines for themselves and their children. Parents are starting to wise up and question the ridiculousness of vaccinations. It is very hard to go against mainstream brainwashing. I hope this book gives people confidence to not believe everything they are told and do what is right for their bodies. It is silly to say the least to blindly inject something into your body without doing any research in regards to its safety.

Why are we being brainwashed to believe vaccines are safe and effective? Vaccines are the core of conventional medicine. Admitting fault of vaccines would break people’s blind faith in this system of medicine. There are many other reasons we are lied to, and Dr. TenPenny discusses some of these reasons in this book.

The plain truth is that vaccines are neither safe nor effective, and instead are harmful. This book easily backs up this truth plainly and clearly for all to know. Whether or not mainstream media supports the findings in this book, they are fact. The body works in a certain way irregardless of what is believed regarding vaccines. We have it so backward in our society that a vaccine must be proved ineffective or harmful before it is actually considered so. It should be that a vaccine should be proved without a doubt (though this is not technically possible) that it is safe before being administered. There are not long term studies for safety. Some say vaccines are the biggest medical experiment in the history of our existence. I feel that it does not really matter what we believe in regards to vaccines at this present point. With the creation of new vaccines to an unprecedented level, it will eventually be inevitable that the body will not be able to tolerate the toxicity of so many vaccines, and the truth regarding vaccines will someday come to light. For those concerned now, this book will give you the power to resist and just say NO!
If you want a comprehensive resource in regards to vaccines that is Not littered with mainstream brainwashing, then this is a must read. The book is a bit pricey, but proceeds from the books help fund a copy of the book to every politician making legislation regarding vaccinations. There is also a fund to support autism. Great information and important causes to support.

For a in depth detailed discussion of vaccinations, visit our website http://www.theholisticparent.org/.
Remember, just say NO.

Find this book at amazon.com

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How to Raise a Healthy Child in Spite of Your Doctor

2009-06-11T20:27:00.001-05:00

This book was originally written quite a bit ago. There are updated versions, but any version is nonetheless important to read as it is still pertinent today. This book offers sound advice in a wholesome way. The book is written by a pediatrician who simply began to question things he had been taught and previously embraced as truth.

My most favorite part of the book is when he points out the strange ritual we have of taking a healthy child to the doctor for a checkup. Well babies do not need well baby checkups. He gives his intelligent reasoning for this. I found this part very enlightening.

Many parents today do not feel confident about their abilities. We have an “ask your doctor” complex in our society where intelligent rational people are brainwashed to be dependent on their doctors for every imaginable thing. Parents must begin to listen to their instincts and realize in many instances, their decision making capabilities are enough. This book gives parents the tools they need to alleviate certain fears in regards to their children and potential issues they should be aware of and can treat at home. This book is one of empowerment.

Another aspect of this book that I love is the issue of childhood fevers. First it must be realized that fevers are a beneficial mechanism of the body. In almost every circumstance, it should not be disturbed and allowed to run its course. Parents have a fear of fevers in our society. We are brainwashed to believe they are extremely harmful. I am guilty of it too. Dr. Mendelsohn helps to explain fevers in a general language all can understand and offers reassurance for when childhood fevers arise.

Dr. Mendelsohn has come to regard vaccines as harmful. He favors breastfeeding and homebirth- two things that research has shown are excellent choices (though we really shouldn’t have needed research to tell us this!). He has a natural holistic approach.

Some main topics covered in this book include headaches, fevers, vaccinations, healthy eating, stomachaches, common illnesses and how to handle them, earaches, vision health, animal bites, emergencies, how to assess when your child really needs medical attention, sprains, strep throat, age appropriateness of child behavior, starting solids, allergies, hospital stays, and so much more. This book is meant to inspire confidence in our innate parenting instincts and proves to be a tremendous resource.

This is the first book I read that began to change my thinking to a more holistic perspective. It validated inner realizations I was beginning to have, and it lead to me search out a holistic way to live. I feel this is a great book for anyone starting out on the journey towards health, parents who want the best for their children, or anyone interested in some enlightening reading. It sure enlightened me. I feel so grateful to have stumbled across this book.

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Making More Milk Review

2009-06-11T20:14:00.000-05:00

I am deeply grateful to this book. Making More Milk is a must read not only for women experiencing supply issues, but to any woman who values breastfeeding. I found it incredibly easy to read. It offers tons of practical advice. There were things in the book that I had been debating on for myself, and I needed someone to give practical information to spell it out for me.
You’ll have to read the book to benefit fully from the information in it, but there are a couple of points that I really liked which I will now summarize.
From this book, I learned how breastfeeding works, which unfortunately is not common knowledge in our society. I learned how the breast functions and what type of things are critical to have a successful milk supply. Making More Milk stresses the importance of breastfeeding and allows the reader to understand what a truly awesome substance breast milk really is. Women who have low milk supplies often work extremely hard to breastfeed. It would be all to easy to get frustrated and give up. This book is encouraging in that it gives great insight to reasons why milk production can be low and ways to raise production.
This book encouraged me to try something called breast compressions, something I had previously been uninterested in. I sat down and tried it for the first time with my pump to see if it really made a difference. And boy, it did! I was sitting there laughing as more milk than usual squirted into my pump. What a joyful experience! For more info on how to perform breast compressions, check out my website http://www.theholisticparent.org/.
Another part of the book that I found really important gave information on how to determine if an infant really needed supplementing. This is a delicate decision for most parents. The book gives weight guidelines, feeding guidelines, information on how to tell how much milk you are producing, and much more. I found this information invaluable.
My favorite chapter dealt with how to supplement without losing your milk supply. This has been a constant struggle to balance since my daughter was born. This book doesn’t necessarily fix all the problems, but it gives great insight on how I can work to fix them. In essence, I am now able to make sure I am doing the right things to fix the issues.
There were a few things however that I did not agree with in this book. This book states that it is not safe nor a good idea to share milk informally. I have researched this topic in depth as it was the only way my daughter was going to get enough milk due to a past surgery. There is definitely a cultural stigma to it, and I’ll admit it took about a month for me to wrap my mind around it. While irresponsible milk sharing can be unsafe, it is still possible that with the proper knowledge responsible milk sharing can be very safe. Milk that is safe for one baby is generally safe for another. I have an entire section dedicated to this on my website.
I also did not agree with the authors’ assertion that dehydration does not affect milk production. The authors admittedly state that severe hydration can affect milk production, but not mild dehydration that most people in our population would be suffering from. I have not researched this in the extent that the authors probably have, but with myself, I have noticed that even the tiniest amount of dehydration plays a major role. For me, it is the difference between my baby latching well and draining all the milk from the breast or being too impatient to latch. For me, it is a huge deal. This may not affect all women, but please make sure you drink enough water. You should not be thirsty throughout the day and your urine should be clear by the end of the day.

There is a website that goes along with the book called http://www.lowmilksupply.org/.
If you’re interested in purchasing this book, here is the link to amazon.com where it is sold.The Breastfeeding Mother's Guide to Making More Milk: Foreword by Martha Sears, RN (Breastfeeding Mothers Guide)

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Primal Mothering in a Modern World

2009-06-11T15:17:00.000-05:00

This book was quite interesting. It was not exactly what I was expecting. I was a bit disappointed because of that, but it did make a big impression on me. This book was written originally at least ten years prior. It is basically one woman’s recounting of her life as a mother, offering unconventional wisdom.

What struck me most about her tales was her unrelenting will to be near her children at all times. She is obviously very in touch with her mothering instinct, and it was refreshing to read about. I enjoyed her take on how she raises her children and what is important to her.

The book reads in a different way. Instead, she shares her thoughts in story like form recounting moments in her life to portray her opinions. In essence, it is a story of her life as a mother; the struggles she faced and overcame. While her life was interesting to read about, there were some slow parts that were hard to follow. This is also what was different about the book than from what I thought it would be. I was anticipating a how to book of sorts. How to parent with primal instincts. There was not much instruction of this in the book; the reader was left to draw their own conclusions.

I originally bought the book because I was hoping it would answer several questions I had in regards to her lifestyle. She is a fruitarian, meaning she eats only fruit (which includes some vegetables, nuts, and seeds) and also raises her children as such. This principle intrigued me at least in the concept of expanding my knowledge. I had wanted to know more research in this area; if it were known to be safe during pregnancy; risks associated with it, her personal health statistics, is it known for safety in children. There were mentionings of her diet and how wonderful she felt it was, but no actual discussion other than her personal story. This was a bit of a disappointment.

Nonetheless, I did enjoy this book because it taught me that my mothering instinct is very important, and it really put me in touch with it. This book gave me the confidence to listen to my mothering instinct in a way I had not even known possible. It made me aware of how present my baby actually is in her interactions with her surroundings. I really admire her assertiveness in regards to letting people hold her babies and just saying no if she didn’t feel comfortable. This made a big impression on me because many times I would not feel comfortable, but in our culture I felt it was the polite thing to do was let people hold your baby. She is a big proponent of babywearing, and even sells her own baby slings called Cozy Cradles. This woman is definitely a go getter. She is self made and worked very hard to get where she is today.

Very interesting read if it’s in your alley. I did enjoy it, but I can’t recommend everyone run out and spend their money on it. It speaks mostly to a smaller group of people.

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