Every Woman's Guide to Eating During Pregnancy

Following her first pregnancy at age 47, award-winning cookbook author Martha Rose Shulman teamed up with Jane Davis, an obstetrician/gynecologist who loves to cook. The result is Every Woman's Guide to Eating During Pregnancy, a readable and practical handbook for mothers about nourishing their growing or breastfeeding child--while enjoying delicious, healthful food. The authors take a fresh and festive view of eating during pregnancy by offering 100 tasty recipes framed in a crash course on nutrition. Refusing to obsess about calories and fat grams, the authors evaluate foods in terms of nutrients--what they do for your body and your baby. "With this book, you can throw out the calculator and reach again for your plate," they promise.

While Shulman and Davis offer solid answers to the usual food queries--how to cope with nausea, how much weight is too much--their approach shines by detailing the nutrition challenges of first-trimester queasiness, second-trimester ravenousness, and third-trimester fullness. The recipes are hip, healthy, and not for pregnant women only. They include fruit soups, black-eyed pea pâté, beef and arugula salad, Mediterranean chicken stew, corn gratin, and peach bread pudding. These easy-to-prepare meals are followed by chapters that focus on eating plans for individual needs such as vegan or lactose-free diets and the special needs of high-risk pregnancy, including gestational diabetes and multiple births. The author's skillful balance of information, advice, and recipes will allow mothers to celebrate both food and family. --Barbara Mackoff