Did you know that... Every year an increasing number of babies are born prematurely or with behavioral disorders? Learn how thinking positively and communicating with your partner and/or medical staff can help prevent a preterm birth and aid in the positive development of your unborn child's personality. A baby's in utero experience builds the brain architecture that will determine behavior throughout life? Discover exercises that will help you control stress, fear, guilt, and anger and change unwanted behaviors during pregnancy. Your unborn child has more nerve cells and many more connections among them than an adult? Learn how a fetal love break can help calm your baby and lead to proper nerve and brain development.

Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the familyâ€"which includes all primary caregiversâ€"are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment. Parents help children build and refine their knowledge and skills, charting a trajectory for their health and well-being during childhood and beyond. The experience of parenting also impacts parents themselves. For instance, parenting can enrich and give focus to parents' lives; generate stress or calm; and create any number of emotions, including feelings of happiness, sadness, fulfillment, and anger. Parenting of young children today takes place in the context of significant ongoing developments. These include: a rapidly growing body of science on early childhood, increases in funding for programs and services for families, changing demographics of the U.S. population, and greater diversity of family structure. Additionally, parenting is increasingly being shaped by technology and increased access to information about parenting. Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.

Easy-to-use charts, diagrams, and checklists enhance a fully updated and accessible guide for parents-to-be that covers every phase and aspect of pregnancy, including prenatal care, hormonal changes, and birthing options.

The second book in the Dr. Spock Take Charge Parenting Guides, crafted by the Dr. Spock Co., Take Charge of Your Pregnancy contains all the essenteial information on pregnancy and fetal development in one clear, concise volume. Pregnant? Congratulations! Now let an expert guide you through this exciting time. Pregnancy is a time of powerful emotions, dramatic changes, and plenty of questions. Noted obstetrician Marjorie Greenfield, MD, one of the new team of medical experts at The Dr. Spock Company, has written this authoritative book to answer all your questions and help ensure a happy, healthy pregnancy. Dr. Spock's Pregnancy Guide will take you month by month through the thrilling journey to parenthood, with special focus on how to: -Follow the development of your growing baby -Find the right obstetrician or midwife -Deal with common symptoms and problems -Plan the kind of childbirth experience you want -Get good care every step of the way, and more For more than 50 years, Dr. Benjamin Spock was the world's best-known pediatrician. Drawing upon his trusted philosophy of baby and child care, a new generation of experts at The Dr. Spock Company brings today's moms and dads the latest in parenting, child-health, and pregnancy information. Be sure to pick up Dr. Spock's Baby Basics, the first book in the Take Charge Parenting Guides series.

The delivery of high quality and equitable care for both mothers and newborns is complex and requires efforts across many sectors. The United States spends more on childbirth than any other country in the world, yet outcomes are worse than other high-resource countries, and even worse for Black and Native American women. There are a variety of factors that influence childbirth, including social determinants such as income, educational levels, access to care, financing, transportation, structural racism and geographic variability in birth settings. It is important to reevaluate the United States' approach to maternal and newborn care through the lens of these factors across multiple disciplines. Birth Settings in America: Outcomes, Quality, Access, and Choice reviews and evaluates maternal and newborn care in the United States, the epidemiology of social and clinical risks in pregnancy and childbirth, birth settings research, and access to and choice of birth settings.

What prenatal tests and down syndrome reveal about our reproductive choices When Alison Piepmeier—scholar of feminism and disability studies, and mother of Maybelle, an eight-year-old girl with Down syndrome—died of cancer in August 2016, she left behind an important unfinished manuscript about motherhood, prenatal testing, and disability. In Unexpected, George Estreich and Rachel Adams pick up where she left off, honoring the important research of their friend and colleague, as well as adding new perspectives to her work. Based on interviews with parents of children with Down syndrome, as well as women who terminated their pregnancies because their fetus was identified as having the condition, Unexpected paints an intimate, nuanced picture of reproductive choice in today’s world. Piepmeier takes us inside her own daughter’s life, showing how Down syndrome is misunderstood, stigmatized, and condemned, particularly in the context of prenatal testing. At a time when medical technology is rapidly advancing, Unexpected provides a much-needed perspective on our complex, and frequently troubling, understanding of Down syndrome.

Your resource for raising a healthy child from the moment of conception! Studies have shown that parents have more influence over their child, both emotionally and physically, during pregnancy and the first years after birth than at any other point in life. With The Attachment Pregnancy, you will learn how to use this important time to form a deeper connection and introduce your child to a loving environment--even before birth. Childbirth experts Tracy Wilson Peters and Laurel Wilson guide you through each stage of development with advice for providing consistent and nurturing care as your baby grows, so that you can ensure that every need is always met. From the moment your child is conceived to the day of delivery, The Attachment Pregnancy shows you how to strengthen your bond and give your baby the best life possible from the very beginning.

Pregnancy after prenatal or infant loss can be a lonely and frightening time, but through stories of both pain and healing, the authors show how to navigate the exciting but choppy waters of a subsequent pregnancy. The loss of a pregnancy or newborn infant changes the meaning of pregnancy, birth, and parenting forever. Increased parental fear and anxiety, and continuing grief for the deceased baby, can impact subsequent pregnancies in unexpected ways. Parents who are unsupported in pregnancy after loss are may be more at risk of experiencing anxiety, depression, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and difficulty in attaching to a new baby. Different Baby Different Story explores the range of emotions, thoughts, and physical experiences of parents who have gone on to subsequent pregnancies. Including stories from mothers, fathers, other children, and extended family members, this poignant and moving work will help readers through their own feelings and give voice to those who may have felt unheard or unsupported in the past. With practical advice on self-advocacy, the book helps expectant parents gain insights as to how others learned to work with health care professionals, mental health professionals, and their own families and friends and coworkers. For expectant mothers, their partners, their families and their friends, this work supports the range of experiences and encourages readers on a path to healing.

A gift edition, with a new letter to the reader from Emily—perfect for baby showers and special moments “Emily Oster is the non-judgmental girlfriend holding our hand and guiding us through pregnancy and motherhood. She has done the work to get us the hard facts in a soft, understandable way.” —Amy Schumer What to Expect When You're Expecting meets Freakonomics: an award-winning economist and author of Cribsheet, The Family Firm, and The Unexpected disproves standard recommendations about pregnancy to empower women while they're expecting. Pregnancy—unquestionably one of the most pro­found, meaningful experiences of adulthood—can reduce otherwise intelligent women to, well, babies. Pregnant women are told to avoid cold cuts, sushi, alcohol, and coffee without ever being told why these are forbidden. Rules for prenatal testing are similarly unexplained. Moms-to-be desperately want a resource that empowers them to make their own right choices. When award-winning economist Emily Oster was a mom-to-be herself, she evaluated the data behind the accepted rules of pregnancy, and discovered that most are often misguided and some are just flat-out wrong. Debunking myths and explaining everything from the real effects of caffeine to the surprising dangers of gardening, Expecting Better is the book for every pregnant woman who wants to enjoy a healthy and relaxed pregnancy—and the occasional glass of wine.