What's Your Favorite Pregnancy Advice Book?

It's been called the mother of all pregnancy books. "What to Expect When You're Expecting," by Heidi Murkoff, the best-selling month-by-month guide to becoming a mom, is considered mandatory reading for pregnant women. It's on the nightstand of 93 percent of American women with a baby on the way.

It's also the only pregnancy book that's been turned into big screen movie in theaters this Friday. Starring Jennifer Lopez (who read the book during her pregnancy), Cameron Diaz, Elizabeth Banks and a kitchen sink full of TV stars, the super-sized baby movie takes its name and inspiration from the tome every pregnant woman is assigned to read, for better or worse.

Forget that it was written in 1984 by an advertising executive, and forget that it's been criticized for making pregnancy seem more panic-inducing than many moms feel it needs to be. (Slate's Alison Benedikt calls it the "mean girl" of pregnancy books).

Before author Heidi Murkoff entered the pregnancy arena, the pickings were slim. Murkoff's what to expect introduced a more personalized experience of pregnancy beyond Dr. Spock and legion of male doctors weighing on something they only partially understand. The success of "What to Expect" opened the floodgates for a plethora of spin-offs, copy-cats and reactionary advice books. Sometimes, it seems, too many.

So what should you really expect from a pregnancy advice book? It depends on who you ask. Shine's mommy editors have their own favorites.

"I loved 'Spiritual Midwifery' by Ina May Gaskin, because it was so different from everything else out there," Shine writer and mom Sarah B. Weir says. "It's for the woman who dreams that giving birth on a hippie commune would be the way to go-even if she is actually going to have her baby in a nice, sanitized hospital with an epidural. "

When Shine's Team Mom editor Charlene Prince Birkeland was expecting, she turned to "The Girlfriend's Guide to Pregnancy" by Vicki Iodine. "I loved it because it was honest and real everything that other moms were afraid to tell you for fear of freaking you out," she says.

For Editor-in-Chief Jennifer Romolini, who had her daughter two years ago, the best advice she got was from a book called "From the Hips: A Comprehensive, Open-Minded, Uncensored, Totally Honest Guide to Pregnancy, Birth, and Becoming a Parent." Written by two moms with Web 2.0 sensibilities and a no-B.S. approach to motherhood, the book provides more of an emotional map for the modern woman.

Now it's your turn: what pregnancy book got you through those nine months and beyond? If someone you loved was having a baby, what book would you give them as a road map?

Related:
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On the set of "What to Expect"