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Multiple Sclerosis and Having a Baby: Everything You Need to Know about Conception, Pregnancy, and Parenthood | 
 enlarge | Author: Judy Graham
Publisher: Healing Arts Press
Category: Book
List Price: $12.95
Buy Used: $0.01
You Save: $12.94 (100%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 849720
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 160
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.3 x 0.6
ISBN: 0892817887
Dewey Decimal Number: 618.3
EAN: 9780892817887
ASIN: 0892817887
Publication Date: May 1, 1999
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More.
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Product Description
An essential resource for anyone with MS who is considering having a child.
• Firsthand advice from a woman with multiple sclerosis who has successfully borne and raised a child.
• Contains information that can change the lives of many of the 250,000 women in the United States suffering from MS.
• Highly readable format puts the facts at your fingertips.
Diagnosed with MS at twenty-eight, author Judy Graham gave birth for the first time at the age of thirty-eight. Her new book Multiple Sclerosis and Having a Baby provides other women who are considering starting a family with the kind of genuine and useful insight that comes only from firsthand experience. Multiple Sclerosis and Having a Baby makes available not only the medical answers prospective parents need, but also the practical suggestions and sound advice that will help them meet the many unique and sometimes difficult challenges that face couples living with MS.
In this highly informative and readable book, Graham asks and provides answers for nearly every question a woman with multiple sclerosis might want to consider before having a baby. With the latest medical facts and valuable data culled from hundreds of interviews with women who have multiple sclerosis and are currently raising a child, Graham straightforwardly addresses such issues as the possibility of relapse, genetic predisposition to MS, sexuality and fertility, pregnancy, postnatal care, and breastfeeding as they relate to women with MS.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...
 terrible book - offensive and inaccurate October 13, 2005
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
This is the worst book I have ever read.
First of all, it bases its "findings" on academic studies that are out of date and contradictory. The book gives no "conclusions" about any topic, but instead presents every piece of research done. She includes research that was conducted before the medical community had a strong understanding of MS and research conducted even before disease modifying medications were developed. To make matters worse, the does nothing to summarize or explain the findings in a meaningful way.
Furthermore, the author's tone and language is incredibly offensive. She refers to people with multiple sclerosis as "disabled" throughout and even goes so far as to suggest that they are "deteriorating". In her relationships section of the book she says something to the extent that people with MS might not be able to find relationships, but don't worry because there are plenty of other disabled people longing for companionship. As if those with MS are unworthy of affection from someone without a chronic illness. Or, my personal favorite, she claims that MS can make existing relationships hard now that one person in the relationship is deteriorating. This kind of language is prevalent throughout the book.
Painfully brief excerpts from patient stories are included. It's nice to hear whether someone experienced a relapse after giving birth, for example, but you don't know anything else about them - how long had they had MS, what form of MS they have, how soon after birth did they return to medication, what did their relapse rate look like before becoming pregnant? Without any context, these tid-bits are useless. And the ones about bad experiences are particularly nerve wracking.
Overall, this book was not in the least bit informative, and does a lot to damage spirit and hope. I'd suggest that you save yourself the money and just have a good chat with your Neurologist and OBGYN.
 A Must Have September 21, 2005
I loved this book! I had 2 children before MS and was quite unsure about how MS would effect the entire process. This book answered all my questions, provided scientific data for both sides when there was something to think about, and was very encouraging while realistic.
 Facts regarding questions I had and anecdotes to consider March 18, 2005
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This was very readable and offered clear and helpful statements of facts as known by medical literature from a few years ago. The anecdotes from various women helped me imagine what a particular result/situation would be like if I were faced with that, which was a helpful supplement to the statistics. Italso offers many practical tips, which while most of us know/may have read before regarding MS generally (keep cool) it was helpful to have them listed nonetheless. When I am in mother-martyr mode I will try to remember the recommendations to ask for help, accept help, and make time for yourself and to rest...and plan ahead for how to make these things possible. While it would be great if updated, it was still well worth buying and reading. I want to go into pregnancy having thought through as many issues as I can (or at least begun to think about them...), and this book helped me do that regarding having MS.
Scary and Depressing March 23, 2004
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I was thrilled to be pregnant and, having seen this book more than once, expected it to be helpful. While it can offer some useful information to those who do not have knowledge about their MS at this point, the rest, with comments added in by mothers, was just scary and depressing. One women even comments that if she had known how bad she was going to feel she would never have gotten pregnant! This is NOT a book for someone who is happy about their pregnancy and unwilling to let MS rule their lives. Women would be better off reading one of the other books on MS combined with a good pregnancy book. This book also chooses to follow alternative medicine, which can be disappointing for those of us looking for traditional medical advice. I would suggest pregnant women with MS find a good website for women with multiple sclerosis. There a person can get advice from the message boards and chats, places where people not only share information, but a general concern for ones feelings.
great book November 23, 2003
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
First, let me say that the only reason I'm giving this 4 stars rather than 5 is because it's 4 yrs old now and with the pace of research & science, I think there may be additional info out there - it'd be great if this book were updated further. That said, this is a terrific book. Its no scarier (for me) than the newsletters that the MS Society sends out - those freak me out sometimes! This book definitely tells you what to watch out for and things to be aware of. I have a great docstor now who focuses on MS so I read through this book but then took some ofthe ideas/my questions to him because he really tells it to me straight and is current with what the findings are, what the real info is. So, this is a good book - but take it with a grain of salt and definitely bounce things around with a good MS doctor too. I wouldn't rely on this book as my sole source of info. It does cover lots of different aspects. Here are the chapters:
- Will I get worse if I have a baby?
- Can you pass MS on to your child?
- Deciding whether to have a baby
- Can you stop yourself from getting worse?
- Relationships, Sexulaity and Fertility
- Pregnancy and prenatal care
- Effects of medications on MS
- Labor and Childbirth
- Breast-feeding
- Getting the help you need
- Fatigue, depression, and other invisible symptoms
- Having more children
- Adoption
- Single mothers
- Practical tips on looking after a child
- Older children
- Working for a living
- Fathers with MS
- Being a parent with MS One note - there's a good chapter in here that I experienced recently - relatives and people who care about me saying "you can't have a baby, you have MS" and all sorts of gloom and doom stuff like "you'll be paralized, its not fair to the baby" (talk about misinformation!!) I've just decided not to talk about it with my relatives because their hearts are in the right place but they're so misinformed and they just won't listen. Anyway, there's a good section on dealing with people like that in the book - I guess its not unusual. I won't live in fear of the unknown.
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