BOOK REVIEW: What Makes a Baby

As promised, here is my first book review on a where do babies / where do families come from book. I was a little hesitant about this book at first, but overall I really like it. Leland likes it too and has asked to read it several times.

What Makes a Baby is a hardcover book, measuring about 10 x 10 inches. The illustrations are colorful and intentionally generic. The people depicted are racially generic and in many cases are of generic gender. The book also sticks to the basics of reproduction, using scientifically correct terminology, including sperm, egg, and uterus.

The book starts by stating the obvious, but important fact that you can’t make a baby from nothing. It goes on to explain that to make a baby you need an egg, a sperm, and a uterus. It points out that some people have sperm, some don’t (and so forth as to the egg and uterus). These generic assertions open the door for the general discussion of boys have sperm, girls have eggs - or you can use this to explain a more personal situation, such as "mommy has no eggs."

The book shows the growth of a baby in-utero and states that sometimes a doctor decides when a baby is to be born and sometimes the baby comes on his or her own. The book then depicts both a vaginal birth and a c-section.

The book ends with a series of questions designed to encourage discussion, such as "who was waiting for you to be born?" Included with the book is a website with a 61-page reading guide to help parents facilitate discussions with their children. You can actually view the entire text of the book in the page-by-page section of the reader guide.

How applicable is the book to embryo adoption?

I found the book to be a great tool for explaining reproduction and relating it back to embryo adoption. The open ended questions in the book allow us to discuss Leland’s story and there is nothing in the book contradictory to his story.

What didn’t I like?
The book depicts an embryo, but fails to use the term embryo. Rather it refers to an embryo as a "tiny thing".

What did I like?
The book points out that "Sometime this tiny thing does not grow. And sometimes it grows into a baby (like you did.)" I think this is a great point that is often overlooked.
I also loved this explanation: "how a baby grows depends on the stories that the egg and sperm share and on the uterus the baby is growing inside of." I think it is really important to highlight that how a baby grows and develops is shaped partly by the mother’s uterus, and not just the
genetics of the sperm and egg.

Is the book graphic or "too mature"?
This a difficult question. I decided to go ahead and buy the book to see for myself. I made this decision because I have notice that sometimes books like these are published for a few years and then essentially disappear. Hopefully that will not happen to this book, but I didn’t want to risk it.

Having now read the book, I do not find it too graphic or too mature even for Leland at two years old. It may seem a little surprising to some to be explaining the ideas of sperm, egg, and uterus to a child so young, but it is hard to explain embryo adoption without first explaining embryos and reproduction. I am comfotable with the level of explanation and with the images in the book. I have, however, kept the book out of reach and only allow him to read it with me.

The book does not go into at all how the sperm and egg get in the uterus. I see this omission as a good thing. It allows the introduction of reproduction without the concept of relations or implantation.

Has anyone else read this book? What do you think?