Pregnancy guide imperative to some, irritating to others

There's not much to do while watching the new movie What To Expect When You're Expecting, an excruciating ensemble pic that feels like 110 minutes of back labour.

Attempting to distract myself, I started thinking about my up-down, love-hate relationship with the original book. Not exactly obvious source material for comedy, the printed version of WTE is a non-fiction month-by-month guide to prenatal fretting.

Penned by Heidi Murkoff, who runs the ever-expanding WTE franchise, the book was first published in 1984 and is now in its 4th edition. While some readers find WTE commonsensical, comprehensive and calming, others view it as bossy, patronizing and a little quick to assume that every woman has a helpful partner at home waiting to draw her bath. The word "simpering" comes up.

WTE is huge: The book, which is read by an estimated 93 per cent of women who read pregnancy books, has been on the New York Times bestseller list for 560 weeks. USA Today named it one of the 25 most influential books of the last 25 years.

But it has also drawn a backlash that can escalate to book-related sabotage and violence. One WTE hater admits to regularly hiding copies she finds in bookstores. Many midwives and OB-GYN's tell their patients to throw their books out. "Burn it. Burn it with fire," writes a reviewer on Amazon.

There's an ideological component, of course, with some friction between crunchy natural-childbirth advocates and those western-medicine-loving gals who have already pre-ordered their epidurals.

But part of the conflict is emotional. My own feelings about WTE were fatally mixed up. I both needed and resented the book, which would build me up one day just to bring me down the next. Our relationship was needy, dysfunctional and co-dependent, filled with breakups, ultimatums and desperate, furtive 3 a.m. reconciliations.

Sometimes the book was controlling and difficult, the tut-tutting tone particularly bad when it came to food. In early editions, Murkoff set out impossibly rigid nutritional guidelines called "The Best Odds Diet," which made it seem as if eating a Big Mac was gambling with my baby's life. Even her concessions to sweet-tooth cravings were uptight: "Have a bran muffin as an occasional treat," Murkoff wrote. Gee, thanks.

At other times the book sounded remote and callous. WTE cautioned that I might feel "discouraged and irritable" during the transitional phase of labour. If by "discouraged and irritable" it meant screaming loudly enough to scare the people in the waiting room, then I agree.

But even as I wanted to get out, I was held hostage by all that information. WTE taps into the utter self-absorption of first-time pregnancy. (And that's not necessarily a bad thing: it will be at least 20 years before a woman can be self-absorbed again.) The book seems to have an entry for every twinge, hiccup and craving, for those itchy palms and that metallic taste in your mouth.

Many of these symptoms are discussed in a way that's soothing and sisterly. But WTE has that women's-magazine knack for calming you down about one thing while getting you in a lather about a dozen other things. Despite its cosy pastel cover, it can be terrifying. (Denouncing its "fear-based" outlook on pregnancy and childbirth, detractors have nicknamed it "What To Freak Out About When You're Expecting" and "The Worst-Case Scenario Pregnancy Handbook.")

Murkoff has toned down some of the alarmist material from the first edition -- WTE's popularity means frequent corrected printings, as well as extensive revisions in 1991, 2002 and 2008 -- but early copies are still floating around because the book tends to get recycled. (I found one old copy in Value Village that, rather poignantly, included a handwritten pregnancy diary in the back, packed with detailed physical symptoms and a happy ending -- a beautiful baby boy.)

Looking at WTE now, I find it easy to dismiss its approach, which somehow manages to be both anxious and cloying. But then I'm not currently pregnant. When I was, WTE was my close and constant frenemy. As long as pregnant women find themselves worrying for two, What To Expect When You're Expecting will be a bestseller.

alison.gillmor@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition May 19, 2012 E3