Jmt.pennpress.org Review:
Journal of Medical Toxicology - The Journal of Medical Toxicology is the official print journal of the American College of Medical Toxicology. This international, peer-reviewed journal is dedicated to advancing the science and practice of medical toxicology. The journal publishes original articles, illustrative cases, review articles, and other special features.
Country: North America, US, United States
City: 19128 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Katybeth Jensen-Ruscitti - Word Working GreatI may be in the minority, but I miss Microsoft Word everyday while I use Pages on my Mac, so when I bought my "window using Son a Mac", I also bought him Word since he was use to using it. So far it has worked beautifully, and I find myself yearning for my own copy, which I will probably buy. I suppose the only reason to stick with Pages is that it's an Apple product and there will always be fewer glitches if you don't mix mac and windows products. Lots of opinion's, but so far the story I am sticking to is that Word has been five star for us.
- Elisa Olivieri - Informative, entertainingThis approachable, entertaining, well-researched book provides clear and useful summaries of medical studies on a wide range of important pregnancy-related topics: the pros and cons of various pre-natal tests, epidurals, induction, doulas, and home birth; foods that are best to be avoided, and those that are less dangerous than conventional wisdom might have us presume. It is an excellent resource-- it's like a friendly encyclopedia of pregnancy- and childbirth- related medical research!
The author emphasizes the fact that medical recommendations come from studies, not from thin air-- and that with a little guidance (which Oster provides), women and their partners can understand those studies, and how to interpret the results in the context of their own lives. Oster shares her own choices (with much self-deprecating humor), but makes it clear that this book is about providing information, not prescriptions.
I greatly appreciated her discussions of the origins and evolution of different recommendations (eg. pre-natal testing after 35, bed rest, fetal heart monitoring during labor, episiotomies); it's really informative to see how best practices change from one generation to the next, and how sometimes practices lag behind research.
The introduction is available online at the Huffington post; I'd suggest checking that out to get a feel for the book. It's a lot less controversial than many of the reviews below would have you believe.
Edit:
All the hoopla around the "pregnancy vices" chapter is overshadowing some of the other important contributions of this book. In the interest of helping you decide if the rest of the book is something you might find valuable:
One of the main themes of this book is that if you want to act in the best interest of your child, you need to figure out what "best" is. Your doctor can guide you, but you can and should have responsibility and agency in these matters.
To a lot of pregnant women, choices about alcohol, coffee, and food are easy-- err on the side of utmost caution. Yet one thing Oster highlights is that most pregnancy-related choices aren't so easily dealt with-- in part because the costs and benefits aren't always clear, and in part because even when they are, the alternatives *all* have costs and benefits worth weighing.
Expectant parents have to make choices, choices that involve real tradeoffs for both baby and mother. Non-invasive prenatal screening, amnio, or CVS? Schedule the induction, or not? Epidural, or not? Home, or hospital? This book does fantastic job of presenting the most credible, up-to-date estimates of the costs and benefits associated with each of these choices, and pinpoints particular things about your situation that that might make you weigh the costs and benefits differently than your friend, your OB, or Emily herself.
I think this is where the book excels, and really fills a void: chapters about topics that are less inherently buzz-worthy than booze, but perhaps even more difficult to navigate in a sea of murky data and misinformation. The prenatal testing chapter is particularly good.