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

[lightreads]

Expecting Better

3/5. Economist gets annoyed with the pregnancy-industrial complex, reads a lot of studies to figure out what is real and what is bullshit. Great principle – there is a general movement towards evidence-based birth and parenting, and I'm for it – and she does have a good eye for spotting obvious biases and studies. But I have a bad taste in my mouth about this book. Yeah, she made a pretty significant analytical error regarding data around birth timing (fixed in a later edition, I believe), but eh, that happens. And yeah, this is the book I was reading last fall when I was pregnant, and the book I stopped reading while I was becoming unpregnant over several terrible weeks of waiting and shots and side effects and blood and unanswerable questions.

Mostly, I think it's that she's taken out all the obnoxious preachiness about the right way to pregnant, and replaced it with slightly less obnoxious preachiness about doing what is right for you. I mean, she's not wrong, but JFC, give it a rest.

A useful book though. I do recommend it to pregnant friends who want to cut through a lot of the bullshit and just have someone tell them, with an actual fucking reason, what foods it's not worth the risk to eat.

Comments

[kate_nepveu]

I found Penny Simkin to be reassuringly medical back in the day, though it's been long enough that that comes with more salt than usual.

[readerjane]

ETA: So sorry. I was typing on my phone and hit Reply on your post when I thought I'd been replying to someone else's.

[cyphomandra]

In the bleak newborn twins plus postnatal depression plus everyone else’s conflicting opinions (and minus sleep) I considered publishing a book called The Evidence-based Baby that would be totally blank, so it’s a relief to know it was mostly the depression talking...