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

Emily Oster, Karen White

eAudio - 2013

An award-winningsocial scientist uses the tools of economics to debunk myths about pregnancyand to empower women to make better decisions while they're expecting.Pregnancy is full of rules. Pregnant women are often treatedas if they were children, given long lists of items to avoid—alcohol, caffeine,sushi—without any real explanation from their doctors about why. They hearfrightening and contradictory myths from friends and pregnancy books about everything from weight gain tosleeping on your back to bed rest. EconomistEmily Oster believes there is a better way. In Expecting Better, she shows that the information given to pregnantwomen is sometimes wrong and almost always oversimplified, and she debunks ahost of standard recommendat...ions on everything from drinking to fetal testing.When Oster was expecting her first child, she felt powerlessto make the right decisions. How doctors think and what patients need are twovery different things. So Oster... more