Ready To Pop: The Ultimate Pregnancy Podcast

Caroline Foran is an Irish author and journalist who has written a handful of books about anxiety, and she made this podcast after her own first pregnancy left her buried under the pile of contradictory information you hit the moment you start Googling. Ready To Pop is a tight, limited eight-part series rather than an endless weekly feed, which is actually part of its appeal. You can listen to the whole thing in a weekend, take what you need, and move on. Each episode pairs Foran with a specific expert: a fertility doctor for conception, a dietitian for nutrition, an obstetrician for labor, a psychologist for the anxiety that nobody warns you about, a dermatologist for the skin changes, and so on. Episodes run between thirty-seven and fifty-seven minutes, so the conversations have room to go deeper than a quick morning roundup. Foran herself is a good interviewer because she's not pretending to already know the answers. She asks the questions a first-time parent actually has, including the slightly embarrassing ones, and she lets her guests explain without rushing. If you want a curated season rather than an ongoing subscription, this is the one to queue up.