What No One Tells You

By: Dr. Alexandra Sacks, Dr. Catherine Birndorf

Narrated by: Cynthia Farrell

Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins

Publisher's Summary

Your guide to the emotions of pregnancy and early motherhood, from two of America’s top reproductive psychiatrists.

With a combined 30 years of counseling new and expectant mothers, Dr. Sacks and Dr. Birndorf have seen firsthand how the pressure to be perfect, and perfectly happy, leaves women feeling confused and even ashamed of the emotions that can bubble up during pregnancy. Now, in What No One Tells You, the two psychiatrists show why it’s natural for “matrescence” - the birth of a mother - to be as stressful and transformative a period as adolescence.

From the swirl of trepidation and joy of seeing that plus sign, to the complexities of bonding with a tiny and mighty newborn human, Drs. Sacks and Birndorf provide a road map for mothers-to-be, detailing the emotions (both positive and negative) that can develop, explaining the psychological backstory as to why, and offering women a practical guide for managing the ups and downs of this exciting, exhausting time.

After years of hearing their patients say, “But how come no one told me?”, Drs. Birndorf and Sacks are ready to share their secrets with the world.  

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2019 Dr. Alexandra Sacks and Dr. Catherine Birndorf (P)2019 Simon & Schuster

So validating!

A must read for any soon-to-be or new mom. this is going on my list of books I recommend to all my pregnant friends. Do yourself a favor and listen to this book and deal with all your complicated mommy feelings.

Useful and a must read but a couple of things...

I really enjoyed this book as someone who works in this space of emotional health through birth. The areas covered really are generally missing from the conversations and it’s great to hear them normalised and explored.

The one thing I felt was that it was still quite medicalised in language and feel.

Very disappointed

After seing Alexandra Sacks' talk on Matresence, I was really excited about her book and was hoping for an in-depth look into the trasformation that is motherhood. No such thing here.

I mean yes, it does mention some rarely discussed issues, but it's very superficial and over-simplistic.

There's no deeper story, most of the time they're purely enumerating scenarios from their practice (you may feel this, you may feel that) which makes it barely relatable and frankly quite tedious at times.

The advice on breastfeeding and infant sleep can actually be harmful because there's no adequate context. Sure, they want to normalize each experience and promote non-judgement, but not explaining for example the value of support or what's biological norm for infant sleep is an issue I can't get over.

Would not recommend.