Kathy Kaehler & Cynthia Tivers
This book has an introduction, two chapters with exercises to do during your pregnancy, and the remaining chapters cover exercises to do for the first six months postpartum.
The exercises are pretty good unless you are used to using heavy weights. The exercises in the book use body weight, light dumbbells or exertubing. I did some of the exercises a few times and liked them okay. I just didn't follow up because I don't really like following exercise programs from books and I was a total slug while I was pregant.
The book contains a lot of anecdotes about Kathy's pregnancy. (she tells you that she gained 80 pounds when she was pregnant with her twins and there are pictures of her very pregnant) There also anecdotes about the pregnancies of several of her celebrity clients including Michelle Pfeiffer, Jami Gertz, Rita Wilson, and Meg Ryan. I found these anecdotes to be somewhat depressing as most of them did not gain much weight during their pregnancies and got back into shape really quickly. In fact, I thought some of the stories set a bad example for pregnant women. According to the book, Meg Ryan and Rita Wilson both gained less than 20 pounds which is certainly below the recommended guidelines for all but very overweight women. However, the book also says that if you step on the scale at some point and don't like what you see then step off the scale and don't beat yourself emotionally. The book also focuses on the fact that every woman is different and you should listen to your own body.
Overall, I thought this book was a fairly informative book for a beginner/intermediate level pregnant exerciser. The exercises in the book are not difficult enough to satisfy the advanced exerciser.
Christina Karnes
12/17/98
