Book Review: "Nurture: A Modern Guide to Pregnancy, Birth, Early Motherhood and Trusting Yourself and Your Body" by Erica Chidi Cohen

This book was a bit intimidating to me when I first saw how large it was, but overall, I enjoyed reading Nurture: A Modern Guide to Pregnancy, Birth, Early Motherhood, and Trusting Yourself and Your Body. Erica Chidi Cohen packed in so much information and so many doula tips and tricks, all with a focus on cultivating the inner tools to thrive throughout pregnancy, birth, and parenthood. The attention of this book is aimed less at one’s preparation for labor and birth, but rather geared more towards providing the readers with tools to nurture themselves throughout such a transitional and taxing time.

  Even with the focus of the book being about nurturing oneself, Chidi Cohen still manages to provide the reader with a vast amount of information about the pregnant body and the monthly progress of one’s developing baby. The information is broken into parts based on the stage of the perinatal period, with a month by month update of what is happening with baby & the pregnant/postpartum person during gestation, preparation for labor & birth, and through the fourth trimester of postpartum.

In the growing baby chapters, the book offers month-specific suggestions of movement (safe stretches & exercises to keep active), mindfulness practices (thoughtful journal prompts & self-care activities to help process and prepare), natural remedies (at-home solutions for pregnancy discomforts), and nourishment (tips on nutrition habits & sample recipes that include the good things folks need for healthy pregnancy, birth, lactation & healing). I really enjoyed that the author thought to include pieces that support a person’s mind, body, and spirit. This part of the book also offers a monthly “#getitdone” section, which highlights a couple tasks each month that would be beneficial to tackle, such as when to build your baby registry or when to take a childbirth education course. I thought this was kind of brilliant! As a self-identified procrastinator, it is always helpful when there is a timeline set for me to follow, and I could see how advantageous it would be to have a couple action items each month written out for me.

Another component of the book that I personally enjoyed were the “Mama Mantras” that were sprinkled throughout the book. These were simple sentences or phrases that helped to set a theme or mindset for that stage of growth. Mantras can be incredibly beneficial for reframing a situation or mindset in a more positive lens. We know that not everything in the perinatal period is sunshine & smiling babies, so I feel these mantras could absolutely come in handy. There is an overall focus of mindfulness and stress reduction during pregnancy & early parenthood, which I feel is often left out in pregnancy & parenting books, more frequently aimed at sharing logistical information and “how-to” content. This book even includes considerations for how pregnancy & a baby might affect relationships with friends, family, work, and one’s partner. The topics this book covers are so broad, and it contains so many incredible bits of information, but I would likely recommend this book as a supplement to a more traditional pregnancy book, to ensure folks are getting all the education they need & deserve.