Here is the one guide pediatricians routinely recommend and parents can safely trust, covering everything from preparing for childbirth to toilet training to nurturing your child’s self-esteem. Whether it’s resolving common childhood health problems or detailed instructions for coping with emergency medical situations, Caring for Your Baby and Young Child has everything you need. •Basic care from infancy through age five• Guidelines and milestones for physical, emotional, social, and cognitive growth•A complete health encyclopedia covering injuries, illnesses, congenital diseases, and other disabilities•Guidelines for prenatal and newborn care with sections on maternal nutrition, exercise, and screening tests during pregnancy•An in-depth guide to breastfeeding, including its benefits, techniques, and challenges•A complete guide for immunizations and updated information on vaccine safety•A guide for choosing child care programs and car safety seats•Ways to reduce your child’s exposure to environmental hazards, such as secondhand smoke• Sections on grandparents, building resilience, media, and multiples • New chapters on sleep and on allergies—including food allergies•New content on prebiotics and probiotics, organic foods, and other healthy lifestyle topics•And much more

    Motherhood has been targeted by advertisers, and bombarded by opinions masquerading as medical necessities. Massaro and Katz are helping mothers reclaim a simpler, more connected first year with their babies. Readers will find eight fun-to-read chapters filled with baby-friendly practices, along with stories from moms in-the-know. In a soothing yet sassy voice, the authors present compelling research on topics like birth, holding your baby, breastfeeding, infant sleep, pottying babies (yes, really!), sign language, baby-led solids, and self-care for moms. The book also features contributions from leading practitioners in baby care: Dr. James McKenna, Dr. Janet Zand, Naomi Aldort, Gill Rapley, Nancy Mohrbacher, and more.

    How do you navigate this ocean of information—not only to find the best practical solutions for you personally, but also to embrace this incredible opportunity for emotional and spiritual transformation that comes from bringing a child into this world? With Transformed by Birth, Dr. Britta Bushnell has created the transformative, intelligent, and empowering pregnancy and childbirth guide you’ve been waiting for.This book embraces birth as a metamorphic experience—a rite of passage in which you are initiated by opening to the unbidden, embodying your own wisdom, and gaining freedom from limiting beliefs.Our culture has inundated us with limiting ideals that prevent us from fully engaging in the journey of pregnancy and childbirth—including a need for control and certainty, vilification of pain, and reverence for technology and intellectual knowledge, among others. Dr. Bushnell helps you clear away unwanted beliefs and behaviors so you can open to the meaning and power of this uniquely life-changing experience. Here she offers daily practices, rituals, exercises, and more to help you cultivate resilience, power, and connection during this transformative time.Childbirth is more than just having a baby. Transformed by Birth invites you to discover childbirth as a transformational experience that alters your knowing of who you are and lasts long after pregnancy and birth are over.

    Everything a woman and her partner need to know about having a baby, from conception to pregnancy.

    Author A. Christine Harris brings a revised and thoroughly updated edition to todays parents-to-be. Still featuring daily entries, a personalized timeline, and pregnancy glossary, the revised edition provides a clearer picture of the baby's in-utero development and the latest advice about giving a growing baby every advantage prior to birth.

    But it wasn't until she was pregnant with her first child that she became intrigued with the study of brain development. She wanted to know precisely how the baby's brain is formed, and when and how each sense, skill, and cognitive ability is developed. And just as important, she was interested in finding out how her role as a nurturer can affect this complex process. How much of her baby's development is genetically ordained--and how much is determined by environment? Is there anything parents can do to make their babies' brains work better--to help them become smarter, happier people? Drawing upon the exploding research in this field as well as the stories of real children, What's Going On in There? is a lively and thought-provoking book that charts the brain's development from conception through the critical first five years. In examining the many factors that play crucial roles in that process, What's Going On in There? explores the evolution of the senses, motor skills, social and emotional behaviors, and mental functions such as attention, language, memory, reasoning, and intelligence. This remarkable book also discusses:         how a baby's brain is "assembled" from scratch the critical prenatal factors that shapebrain development how the birthing process itself affects the brain which forms of stimulation are most effective at promoting cognitive development how boys' and girls' brains develop differently how nutrition, stress, and other physical and social factors can permanently affect a child's brain Brilliantly blending cutting-edge science with a mother's wisdom and insight, What's Going On in There? is an invaluable contribution to the nature versus nurture debate. Children's development is determined both by the genes they are born with and the richness of their early environment. This timely and important book shows parents the innumerable ways in which they can actually help their children grow better brains.

    Monique Dembele saved lives and dispensed hope in a place where childbirth is a life-and-death matter. This book tells of her unquenchable passion to better the lives of women and children in the face of poverty, unhappy marriages, and endless backbreaking work. Monique's buoyant humor and willingness to defy tradition were uniquely hers. In the course of this deeply personal narrative, as readers immerse themselves in the rhythms of West African village life, they come to know Monique as friend, mother, and inspired woman.

    Most doctors are trained to think of a “good” birth only in terms of its medical success. But Dr. Anne Lyerly knows firsthand that there are many other important elements that often get overlooked. Her three-year study of a diverse group of over one hundred expectant moms asked what matters most to women during childbirth. The results, presented to the public for the first time in A Good Birth, show what really matters goes beyond the clinical outcome or even the usual questions of hospital versus birthing center, and reveal universal needs of women, like the importance of feeling connected, safe, and respected.Bringing a new perspective to childbirth, the book’s wisdom is drawn from in-depth interviews with women with a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences, and whose birth stories range from quick and simple to complicated and frightening. Describing what went well, what didn’t, and what they’d do differently next time, these mothers give voice to the complete experience of childbirth, helping both women and their healthcare providers develop strategies to address the emotional needs of the mother, going beyond the standard birth plans and conversations. Transcending the “medical” versus “natural” childbirth debate, A Good Birth paves the entryway to motherhood, turning our attention to the deeper and more important question of what truly makes for the best birth possible.

    In a world of modern, involved, caring parents, why are so many kids aggressive and cruel?  Where is intelligence hidden in the brain, and why does that matter?  Why do cross-racial friendships decrease in schools that are more integrated?  If 98% of kids think lying is morally wrong, then why do 98% of kids lie?  What's the single most important thing that helps infants learn language?NurtureShock is a groundbreaking collaboration between award-winning science journalists Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman.  They argue that when it comes to children, we've mistaken good intentions for good ideas.  With impeccable storytelling and razor-sharp analysis, they demonstrate that many of modern society's strategies for nurturing children are in fact backfiring--because key twists in the science have been overlooked.Nothing like a parenting manual, the authors' work is an insightful exploration of themes and issues that transcend children's (and adults') lives.

    These messages are powerful and we end up spending too much precious time and energy managing perception and creating carefully edited versions of families to show to the world. Based on 12 years of pioneering research, Dr. Brene Brown off ers a new perspective of the subject of perfect parenting. She states, "It's actually our ability to embrace imperfection that will help us teach our children to have the courage to be authentic, the compassion to love themselves and others, and the sense of connection that gives true purpose and meaning to life." Dr. Brown proposes that the greatest challenge of wholehearted parenting is being the adult that we want our children to grow up to be. The Gifts of Imperfect Parenting is a practical and hopeful program for raising children who know that they are worthy of love, belonging, and joy. Drawing on her research on vulnerability, courage, worthiness, and shame, Dr. Brown invites listeners on a journey to transform the lives of parents and children alike as we explore how to cultivate wholeheartedness in our families.

    Offered are ways for mothers to reconnect with their inner selves and become calmer and happier—with the recognition that a happier mother will be a better parent. This realistic look at motherhood acknowledges the sorrows as well as the joys of mothering and offers real and achievable coping strategies for mothers to renew their lives on a deep level.

    Nina Planck, one of the great food activists, changed the way we view old-fashioned foods like butter with her groundbreaking Real Food. T hen she got pregnant. Never one to accept conventional wisdom blindly, Nina found the usual advice about pregnancy and baby food riddled with myths and misunderstandings. In Real Food for Mother and Baby, Nina explains why many modern ideas about pregnancy and infant nutrition are wrongheaded and why traditional foods are best. While Nina can be controversial—her op-ed in the New York Times on vegan diets for infants was one of the paper’s most e-mailed articles— she’s no contrarian. Readers applaud her candor; they also trust her research and welcome her advice. Nina’s basic premise hasn’t changed—whole foods are best—but some of the details are surprising. Pregnant women need meat and salt, not iron supplements. Nursing will be easier if you act like the mammal you are. Delaying the introduction of certain solid foods doesn’t prevent allergies. Cereals are not the best foods for tiny eaters; meat and egg yolks are better. From conception to two years, the body’s overwhelming needs are for quality fat and protein, not for carrots and low-fat dairy. Even as she casts a skeptical eye on the conventional wisdom, Nina is reassuring. She shows you how to keep your baby healthy on good, simple food. Real Food for Mother and Baby will be the new classic on eating for two.

    The children who heard more words were better prepared when they entered school. These same kids, when followed into third grade, had bigger vocabularies, were stronger readers, and got higher test scores. This disparity in learning is referred to as the achievement gap.Professor Dana Suskind, MD, learned of this thirty million word gap in the course of her work as a cochlear implant surgeon at University of Chicago Medical School and began a new research program along with her sister-in-law, Beth Suskind, to find the best ways to bridge that gap. The Thirty Million Word Initiative has developed programs for parents to show the kind of parent-child communication that enables optimal neural development and has tested the programs in and around Chicago across demographic groups. They boil down to getting parents to follow the three Ts: Tune in to what your child is doing; Talk more to your child using lots of descriptive words; and Take turns with your child as you engage in conversation. Parents are shown how to make the words they serve up more enriching. For example, instead of telling a child, “Put your shoes on,” one might say instead, “It is time to go out. What do we have to do?” The lab's new five-year longitudinal research program has just received funding so they can further corroborate their results. The neuroscience of brain plasticity is some of the most valuable and revolutionary medical science being done today. It enables us to think and do better. It is making a difference in the lives of both the old and young.  If you care for children, this landmark book is essential reading.

    Selected by the New York Times as one of the 50 Best Memoirs of the Past 50 YearsThe experience of motherhood is an experience in contradiction. It is commonplace and it is impossible to imagine. It is prosaic and it is mysterious. It is at once banal, bizarre, compelling, tedious, comic, and catastrophic. To become a mother is to become the chief actor in a drama of human existence to which no one turns up. It is the process by which an ordinary life is transformed unseen into a story of strange and powerful passions, of love and servitude, of confinement and compassion.In a book that is touching, hilarious, provocative, and profoundly insightful, novelist Rachel Cusk attempts to tell something of an old story set in a new era of sexual equality. Cusk's account of a year of modern motherhood becomes many stories: a farewell to freedom, sleep, and time; a lesson in humility and hard work; a journey to the roots of love; a meditation on madness and mortality; and most of all a sentimental education in babies, books, toddler groups, bad advice, crying, breastfeeding, and never being alone."Funny and smart and refreshingly akin to a war diary--sort of Apocalypse Baby Now...A Life's Work is wholly original and unabashedly true."--The New York Times Book Review

    Expert advice from a registered nurse-midwife on caring for baby from birth through the first year of life.