Proven Guidelines for a Healthy Multiple Pregnancy

I give FULL credit for my successful twin pregnancy to this book! I wish I could meet the authors and personally thank them. I followed the advice very strictly. I knew I needed help when I asked my doctor for advice on eating and she recommended I eat an extra yogurt a day.
What were my results? I went 38.5 weeks before I had a scheduled c-section and gave birth to two healthy girls, 7 lbs 11 oz and 6 lbs 15 oz. This is HUGE for twins!!!
My pediatrician shook my hand and said "I don't know what you did, but I have alot of respect for you". The only thing I did was follow this book!

I would recommend this book to all mothers expecting twins or more. I like the way Dr Luke describes why each recommendation is given and how strong the evidence is. The multiple clinic at my hospital was very impressed with my knowledge about nutrition during twin pregnancy. I hope to have 2 very healthy (and big) babies in May!

The other reviewers are dead-on...this book was far and away The Most Helpful and Useful book during my twin pregnancy. Absolutely. The other books scared me, this one inspired me.

I credit Dr. Luke's guidelines in large part to my twins' high birth weights: 6 lbs. 3 oz., and 7 lbs. 9 oz., delivered at 37w5d. Every single one of the 65 lbs. I gained during the pregnancy was worth it when the twins spent zero time in the NICU and were discharged from the hospital the same day I was. Doctors we didn't know were coming to see them in the hospital, saying they heard about "the big twins" that were born.

Absolutely essential read if you are having multiples! Unfortunately, doctors don't always get ahead of the curve and suggest this until you see them late in the first or early second trimester but the nutrition advice in Dr. Luke's book is well founded and recommended by both my nutritionist and my perinatal specialist. Its also written like you would hear it from a doctor and based on studies and facts gained in Dr. Luke's experience specifically treating MoM, not in the colloquial tone that many of the books Ive read typically use. (ie - the "Q&A" in the what to expect when you're expecting series).

Reads like a collage text book. Assumes the reader is intelligent, instead of stupid. I loved this book. It is ALL about your multiple pregnancy (noting about raising multiples). I read it at the beginning of my pregancy and went back and used it as a reference throughout. I would highly recommend this book!

I'm expecting triplets and had so many questions. This book gave me a great sense of what to eat, what questions to ask the dr and personal experiences from other moms of multiples. I highly recommend this book to any mom of multiples.

Highly recommended for anyone pregnant with twins or super twins. It's true everything is different with twins-beginning with pregnancy. So why not get a book that treats it differently? I got this book during the 2nd trimester after reading good reviews on the store. I thought about not doing buying it- but am so glad I did. It includes detailed information on the signs of pre-term labor which is key to getting to term when you are pregnant with more than one. I delivered healthy big (over 7 pounds each) full term babies with the help of this book!

I was expecting this book to be slightly helpful. But it had been tremendously. Not only did it offer a successful vitamin regiment that curb my vitamin nausea, it also suggest a way to reduce my chances of getting preeclampsia. My swelling with twins had been less then my swelling with the singleton I had. The diet suggestions have been right on target. I'm having a healthier pregnancy all around. I highly recommend this book to anyone expecting more then one. They covered all types of women from very underweight to, like me, very overweight. The nook has given me an understanding of what my body is going threw and when things do happen I fell better being prepared.

I had 24 hour morning sickness during my 1st Trimester and wish I had this book from day one. As an expectant mother of boy/girl twins I would say this book is a must have. Other pregnancy books don't get into the details about twins and super twins such as bed rest and topics about premature birth, but this book does. It made me feel a lot better about certain things that were going on in my pregnancy and shared steps I should take to help ease some things. I found the information very information and comforting. There were many helpful websites and organizations including as well.

I live in a relatively large community and yet there are no birthing centers dedicated to multiple gestations. As a result, I am being seen for my twin pregnancy by an OB who works closely with a maternal fetal medicine specialist. My OB also referred me to yet a third specialist for my monthly level II sonograms. After reading this book, I felt more knowledgeable and empowered. I knew what questions to ask and what potential concerns I might face in the future. This book also provided me with more detailed guidelines on proper nutritional requirements associated with a healthy twin pregnancy. I now order a shake with my grilled chicken and vegetables!

Very informative book if you're expecting multiples, I started reading "What to expect" and switched to this book when we learned we were expecting more than one baby, I would say the two books aren't exclusive and it may be helpful to others to read both, but Twins, Triplets or Quads is a great place to start if you're aiming for reading efficiency. I learned a lot and while there are bits about the potentially scary things that can happen I felt the information was presented in a matter of fact way that also took the time to discuss liklihood and the "why" of including it in the book.

Great for preparing us for what to expect when our triplets arrived. We also used the book as a guide for how the pregnancy would go as far as weight gain and diet plan for optimal health of the babies. My Dr, dietician and other mom's of multiples suggested we read it. I suggest it for both mom and dad!

This book is jam pack full of information. However, it doesn't apply to every pregnancy and had me terrified I would be out on bed rest at 23 weeks. It had me all consumed with everything I was eating, not eating, doing, not doing, and frankly I am 30 weeks pregnant with healthy identical twin girls, so take it all with a grain of salt. The ideas are excellent but some situations are obviously idealistic and not for everyone. My husband will not be stopping at a market to pick me up fresh produce daily for me to feed his babies, nor will my ob/gyn be bringing me egg mcmuffins daily while I am at work, instead of on hospital bed rest but even if I was on bed rest it just wouldn't happen. These things don't happen. This is my second pregnancy and I am also a nurse so parts were a bit boring and I fervently wished this book was written a bit more like what to expect when your expecting.... except for multiples. Not the case. It isn't an easy book to quickly reference a bulleted point like the latter. They do however share uplifting stories of people that have made it through a multiples pregnancy, some with great difficulty others with relative ease. I would not hesitate to check this book out and formulate your own opinion.

If you are having multiples you should get this book, it explains growth stages and nutrition in a way that makes sense and you do not need to be a doctor to understand. it is very informative and I found the information useful.

Despite having my twins 9 weeks early, by following this book they were born very heathy and came home from the hospital in 2 weeks. I followed the food guidelines and didn't really gain weight until after my first 3 weeks.( Morning sicness all day and night)

The doctors were all very pleasantly surprised at the size and health of the girls. Thank you very much.

Best book out there - and trust me, I bought them all! If it wasn't for this book, I never would have realized that I was completely undereating due to worries of gaining excessive weight. If I hadn't followed what the author suggested (at least mostly followed) I can't imagine how tiny my twins would have been. They were still 6 weeks early, but at 4-4 each, they were healthy enough to only spend 2 weeks in the NICU. They are now 5 months and a huge 15 pounds each!

Excellent resource. Prepared me well for twin pregnancy and the possible outcomes. The author spends a lot of time on calorie and nutrient consumption; I tried to follow this as closely as possible. I gained 60 lb (went from 145 up to 205 lb) and made it to 37 weeks with two healthy babies! We still had some unexpected issues (jaundice, weight gain, upper lip ties, and torticollis for them, port-partum depression and sleep deprivation for me) but reasonably healthy. I really think the nutrient intake had a lot to do with it. I did not attempt to lose weight until well into the first year, as I found that lots of water and a high calorie intake was still extremely important for nursing twins. Despite my large pregnancy weight gain, I was able to get back down to 145 in 18 months, which I think was from breastfeeding and trying to be generally healthy.
Twins are AWESOME! Congratulations!

Loving this book! If you are pregnant with twins (or more), you HAVE to do the research- it is different than a singleton pregnancy. ignoring this advice is at your own risk. This book is about the pregnancy itself (the most critical part so your babies are born as healthy as they can be) and not so much about the post-delivery how to raise twins. There are other books for that. This book is positive and realistic, giving you the good and the bad. Very well-written. I started with a different highly-rated twin book and absolutely hated it- it was preachy and focused on old anecdotes that were irrelevant. THIS book is awesome. If any of my friends is ever pregnant with twins, this will be my first gift to them.

The pros:
- One of the few books focused on carrying multiples
- Covers aspects of pregnancy, delivery, and early life of the children
- Provides a reality check for things like preterm labor, C-sections, and bonding with multiple children

The cons:
- Lots of discussion on how to gain a lot of weight (more than my doctor's recommendation) early in pregnancy. Spoiler alert - eat more!
- The personal stories sometimes felt like testimonials promoting the book you are already reading.
- Lots of outdated information, like buying your spouse a pager to alert them of labor, using crib bumpers, etc.

I just came from my first appointment with a nutritionist in my OB's office. I told her I had been reading a book that recommends gaining a lot of weight when you're pregnant with twins. She immediately said, "Do you have Dr. Luke's book? Most of my patients who read that one arrive in tears about having to gain so much weight. And funny how Dr. Luke doesn't tell you how to take off those extra pounds after the birth." She says I really need to only gain 40-45 lbs. - not the 40-56 recommended here.
But the nutritionist does agree with the frequent mini-meals or eating every two hours strategy and said the general guidelines for protein, fat, and carbs are good. We've worked out a diet that's somewhere between what one would eat for a singleton pregnancy and Dr. Luke's plan.
(BTW - I'm at Mass. General in Boston - not some local practice in the middle of nowhere).
Like some other readers I found the second author's tale of her horrific twin experience frightening and felt it was there to scare me into following the plan lest I experience the same outcome of preemies in the NICU.
There are many helpful chapters in this book, but, unlike other readers I'm not sure it's the be all to end all of multiple pregnancy advice.

So many websites, friends, and other books will misinform mothers-to-be of twins. This book is empowering me to take care of my twin pregnancy, and feeling more confident about my involvement in hopefully delivering two healthy babies.

Awesome book to any parent looking for information on multiple pregnancy!!! Very instructive, complete, and you learn tons of information regarding your pregnancy. Totally recommend to all parents multiples. It's simply GREAT!!!!

This book gives specific feedback on ways to carry multiples in a healthy manner. The point of view may be a bit rigid for some people but it attempts to cover challenges and possible pitfalls that can occur along the way. I found it helpful overall but some suggestions were not a good fit for me, so take what you can to be helpful!

While many MoMs critique the dietary advice in this book, I found that portion of the book to be the most based on research and the least based on scare-tactics. While the main information in the book is fairly good, most sections start out with some sort of anecdote that's designed to scare a pregnant mom into following the advice.
For example, when suggesting that pregnant MoMs go off work early they use the premature birth of Ms. Eberlein's twins as their example of the horror that could befall you if you try to negotiate a later maternity leave with your doctor. Yet if you read the whole book you will see that Ms. Eberlein took a new (high stress) job at the beginning of her pregnancy, pushed herself to continue going to the gym regularly even when she was exhausted and generally ignored her body's messages, worked long hours (was "running for the last train of the day" which is usually pretty late at night), and dismissed signs of preterm labor as "Braxton Hicks" without even discussing them with her doctor. Certainly going off work earlier would have helped Ms. Eberlein, but it's entirely possible that a future MoM who was able to slow down and listen to her body would have a different outcome without leaving work earlier. It particularly bothered me that they suggest a future MoM use all 12 weeks of her family leave time *before* the birth of her children---unless you aren't planning to return to work or you can take additional time (either paid or unpaid) then discuss your options with your doctor because you will definitely need time after your babies are born! (Obviously some pregnant moms need additional time because of their specific complications--what bothered me was the assertion that all pregnant moms of multiples should be using most/all of their maternity leave before the birth of their babies.)
One other scare tactic that bothered me was an anecdote about a regular OB who delivered stillborn twins then questioned why someone said he should have referred the mom to a high-risk specialist with the note "the evidence was right in his hands." Yet nowhere does it state what caused the babies to be stillborn or why a high-risk specialist would have been able to save them. Without this information it was just there to scare moms into following their advice. The rest of that section included some very good arguments for switching to a high risk doctor. I'm not saying that finding a perinatologist is a bad idea. It just bothered me that they started with such a scary anecdote and no evidence to back up their assertion that having a different doctor would have changed the outcome.

If you are the kind of person who worries obsessively what other people think or has very shallow, critical friends, then there are probably some stories that will help you advocate for yourself.
If you are the kind of person who can read through the scare-tactics without freaking out, then there is some good advice for you and it's probably a good read.
For most people, I think you can skip this one. Join your local twin moms club or an online twin forum and get advice from those of us who've been there instead.