Emily Oster

An award-winning social scientist uses economic tools to challenges popular misconceptions about pregnancy to counsel women on how to navigate contradictory and extreme abstinence-style advice to promote empowerment, reduce risks and enable practical choices.

Why the Conventional Pregnancy Wisdom Is Wrong--And What You Really Need to Know

Expecting Better

Pregnancy--unquestionably one of the most profound, meaningful experiences of adulthood--can reduce otherwise intelligent women to, well, babies. We're told to avoid cold cuts, sushi, alcohol, and coffee, but aren't told why. Rules for prenatal testing are hard and fast--and unexplained. Are all of these recommendations right for every mom-to-be? Here, the author shows that pregnancy rules are often misguided and sometimes flat-out wrong. Pregnant women face an endless stream of decisions, from the casual to the frightening. Expecting Better presents the hard facts and real-world advice you won't get at the doctor's office or in the existing literature.

how to fight the pregnancy establishment with facts

Expecting better

Sometimes, I felt like yelling to the nearest stranger, “okay, we get it, pregnant people can drink coffee.” Overall, Emily has done a grand service for humankind. 

Adam Scharf

Meghan Navoy

Filled with a lot of useful information for people interested in possibly getting pregnant. I went in knowing basically nothing and found it really interesting. There's definitely more bias than I think the author believes she has - including ableist language around babies born with disabilities and fatphobic language around mothers' weights. I was pretty surprised to see her reliance on BMI as a person who is a self proclaimed researcher and skeptic as BMI doesn't tell you anything about your actual health! Of course no book is perfect and overall I found it useful.

Morgan Holland

The best go-to book on the big questions during pregnancy

Sarah Bryan 

Juliana Jaramillo

Chana

Hannah Yoon

Jessicamarie Fox

Yulian Kuncheff

*Newly Revised for 2019* What to Expect When You're Expecting meets Freakonomics: an award-winning economist disproves standard recommendations about pregnancy to empower women while they're expecting. From the author of Cribsheet, a data-driven decision making guide to the early years of parenting Pregnancy—unquestionably one of the most pro­found, meaningful experiences of adulthood—can reduce otherwise intelligent women to, well, babies. Pregnant women are told to avoid cold cuts, sushi, alcohol, and coffee without ever being told why these are forbidden. Rules for prenatal testing are similarly unexplained. Moms-to-be desperately want a resource that empowers them to make their own right choices. When award-winning economist Emily Oster was a mom-to-be herself, she evaluated the data behind the accepted rules of pregnancy, and discovered that most are often misguided and some are just flat-out wrong. Debunking myths and explaining everything from the real effects of caffeine to the surprising dangers of gardening, Expecting Bettering is the book for every pregnant woman who wants to enjoy a healthy and relaxed pregnancy—and the occasional glass of wine.

Why the Conventional Pregnancy Wisdom Is Wrong--and What You Really Need to Know

Kimberly Burgess 

FREAKONOMICS meets WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN YOU'RE EXPECTING in this groundbreaking guidebook. Award-winning Emily Oster debunks myths about pregnancy to empower women while they're expecting. Pregnancy is full of rules. Pregnant women are often treated as if they were children, given long lists of items to avoid-alcohol, caffeine, sushi- without any real explanation from their doctors about why. They hear frightening and contradictory myths about everything from weight gain to sleeping on your back to bed rest from friends and pregnancy books. In EXPECTING BETTER, Oster shows that the information given to pregnant women is sometimes wrong and almost always oversimplified. When Oster was expecting her first child, she felt powerless to make the right decisions for her pregnancy so Oster drew on her own experience and went in search of the real facts about pregnancy using an economist's tools. Economics is the science of determining value and making informed decisions. To make a good decision, you need to understand the information available to you and to know what it means to you as an individual. EXPECTING BETTER overturns standard recommendations for alcohol, caffeine, sushi, bed rest, and induction while putting in context the blanket guidelines for fetal testing, weight gain, risks of pregnancy over the age of thirty-five, and nausea, among others. Oster offers the real-world advice one would never get at the doctor's office. Knowing that the health of your baby is paramount, readers can know more and worry less. Having the numbers is a tremendous relief-and so is the occasional glass of wine. This groundbreaking guidebook is as fascinating as it is practical.

Expecting Better Why the Conventional Pregnancy Wisdom Is Wrong--And What You Really Need to Know

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