Heidi murkoff and sharon mazel biography

What to Expect When You're Expecting

Book by Heidi Murkoff

This article is about the book. For the 2012 romantic comedy film, see What to Expect When You're Expecting (film).

What to Expect When You're Expecting is a pregnancy guide, now in its fifth edition, authored by Heidi Murkoff and Sharon Mazel and published by Workman Publishing. Its first edition, authored by Murkoff, Arlene Eisenberg, and Sandee Hathaway, was originally published in 1984. The book consistently tops The New York Times Best Seller list in the paperback advice category, is one of USA Today's "25 Most Influential Books" of the past 25 years and has been described as "the bible of American pregnancy". As of 2021, per the publisher and the author's agent, over 22 million copies were in print in . According to USA Today, 93 percent of all expectant mothers who read a pregnancy guide read What to Expect When You're Expecting. In 2005, WhatToExpect.com launched. The What to Expect mobile app launched on iOS in 2009 and Android in 2014. In 2012, What to Expect When You're Expecting was adapted into a film released by Lionsgate.

History

Author Heidi Murkoff cites her own quest for reassuring information during her first pregnancy as being the motivation for developing What to Expect When You're Expecting. Murkoff collaborated with her mother Arlene Eisenberg, a freelance journalist, and her sister Sandee Hathway, a nurse, when writing the first three editions of the pregnancy guide.

Its iconic title emerged when an employee of the publisher suggested it as a subtitle for the temporarily titled manuscript, "Pregnancy:" By publication, the subtitle had claimed the top spot.

Although the book's initial print run was small, word of mouth and innovative promotion led to sales that increased in eve

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    • What To Expect The 1st Year [rev Edition]

    FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE BESTSELLING WHAT TO EXPECT SERIES. 40 MILLION COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDE.
    FULLY REVISED AND UPDATED THROUGHOUT.

    This comprehensiveand practical month-by-month guideclearly explains everythingparents need to know – or might be worrying about – in the first year with a new baby.

    Including:-
    • All-new chapter on buying for baby; helping parents navigate through the dizzying gamut of baby products, nursery items and gear.
    • Baby care fundamentals, from crib and sleep safety to vitamin supplements.
    • Feeding for every age and stage, including tips on breastfeeding, preparing homemade baby food and the latest recommendations on starting solids.
    • Charts for key development stages and sleeping habits, as well as sleep strategies that really work.
    • Research on the impact of screen time (TVs, tablets, apps, computers).
    • The most up-to-date medical advice on vaccines, illnesses, SIDS, safety, and more, plus handy first-aid guides.
    • Dozens of Q&A sections, practical tips and advice that focus on advice for parents and their baby, covering everything from how to give a bath and decode your baby's crying to when to return to work.
    This is the only book on infant care to address both the physical and emotional needs of the whole family. This edition is organised more intuitively than ever before.
    Covering the most up-to-date knowledge, both medical and developmental, WHAT TO EXPECT THE 1st YEARis, above all, down-to-earth and reassuring – and an invaluable aid for all parents of new babies.

    Praise for the What to Expect series:-

    ‘Written by mothers, for mothers, full of eminently practical advice.’ New Generation
    ‘Worth its weight in gold.’ Living Today

    About the author
    Heidi E. Murkoff is the primary author of the bestselling WHAT TO EXPECTseries and one of the world's leading experts in pregnancy and childcare. She lives in California with her husb
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      • Heidi murkoff and sharon mazel biography

    What to Expect When You're Expecting

    September 28, 2014
    This is probably not the worst pregnancy book in the universe, but it is the worst one I've ever read. Unfortunately it's also the most popular, no doubt due to its admittedly catchy title and unavoidable ubiquity. I'm sure that many, many women, like me, zipped off to the library and grabbed this first thing after their positive pregnancy test.

    I had zero ambivalence about being pregnant, but I imagine that for other thinking women less sure they want a baby, this book could do a lot to make them decide that in fact they might not. A lot of people have complained about its alarmist tone and cataloguing of things that can go wrong, but I don't particularly remember that; what I hated was its insultingly cutesy-but-hideously-uncute, grating, idiotic style. The entire book is written in peppy, spunky awful-puns-that-aren't-even-really-puns and moronic-jokes-that-aren't-actually-jokes. These aren't real examples, because I don't have the book, but seriously the whole thing is like, "Being pregnant is a gas! And you'll have gas the whole time your little bun is in the oven... Speaking of buns, you may want to indulge your cravings for sticky buns, but be careful or your buns will get fat and no one wants that! Teeheehee!" I mean, obviously that is not a direct quotation, but in essence it really is not so far off. I hate this book because it makes pregnancy seem stupid, and seems to imply that being pregnant is going to make you stupid. If this is something you're already kind of worried about, What to Expect can be a highly distressing read. I found its tone so nauseating and awful that it made me slightly less excited about being pregnant for awhile. It really made the whole thing seem like a lame project for stupid, infantilized women, and something I didn't want to be a part of at all despite really wanting a baby.

    To be fair, I have a hard time with a lot of accepted pregnancy book convention

    .