Expecting Better: Why the Conventional Pregnancy Wisdom Is Wrong--and What You Really Need to Know (The ParentData Series)

This book came highly recommended by friends when I got pregnant with my first. It was so helpful and interesting to read. I flew through it and will be gifting this book again and again to new moms.It was fun to read and really took so much stress off of the research and decision making during pregnancy. There is so much conflicting information out there it’s scary to know what is right. I loved how it broke down all of the common worries and put actual statistics against them. I felt so much more confident through my pregnancy after reading this book.

I love healthy debates about books. It's one of my favorite pastimes. However, I'm quite discouraged by all of the 1-star, negative reviews on here that seem to take issue with 12 pages of this 281-page book that cover the topic of alcohol while pregnant. I don't believe the author states anywhere in this book that women should go out and drink while pregnant, nor does she minimize the struggles of those affected by Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. This book was written for educated, intelligent women who want the facts about a wide range of topics so that they may make decisions for themselves based on evidence and research. She would be remiss if she wrote this book and left out any mention of alcohol. In fact, on page 40 Oster writes: "There is no question that very heavy drinking during pregnancy is bad for your baby. Women who report binge drinking during pregnancy are more likely to have children with serious cognitive deficits." I think her stance is pretty clear on that.I am a healthcare professional who happens to work in a city where many of the residents are low-income and the majority have not finished high school. I completely, wholeheartedly believe that it would be irresponsible to go around hanging up posters telling moms-to-be to "Go ahead! Get wasted!" This is not who this book was written for. In fact, at no point did I feel that Oster was imposing her opinion on her readers; she says over and again in more or less words, "Here are the facts, here's the research, the choice is yours to make." She does, however, candidly share the choices she's made, and instead of criticizing her for that, we should be applauding her for her honesty.So -- who is Expecting Better for? It's for women like me who are sick and tired of getting "coloring your hair probably is fine" from one doctor and "you should probably wait until your second trimester" from another doctor. Or reading one popular website that says, "Put down that turkey sandwich!" while another says, "as long as you're getting it from a deli that changes their meats quickly you 'should' (there's that's word again) be fine..." I want facts and figures. I want peer-reviewed research. I want to know WHY it's a risk to drink too much caffeine, and why I'm not going to (hopefully) do major damage if I have to take a Tylenol.I'm happy for my friends and family who seem to be floating through their pregnancies without a care in the world. I've never been that kind of person who can just trust everything will be fine so long as I maintain a positive outlook. On the contrary, I have always been the person who believes in informed consent and carefully weighting risks and benefits before making choices. I do my research, then make my decision knowing that whatever consequences I face are a result of carefully thought-out decisions.Above all, I appreciate that the author treats pregnant women as responsible adults who are capable of making their own decisions. Too much of maternal fetal medicine in the U.S. resorts to directing the expectant mothers towards test, after test, after test with results being reported as "everything looks fine," without even so much as explaining what was done and why. This is my body and my baby and I'd like to have more of a say with what's going on, and I'd like to be armed with the most current research.Expecting Better will the THE book I recommend to every pregnant friend of mine from this point forward. It's a must-read. Take the information and make your own choices based on what's best for you. And, by all means, if you're that opposed to the Alcohol section (or any other section of the book), skip it.Great book!

This was exactly the kind of book I needed. I have a biology degree, so I hate it when doctors talk to me like I don't know anything about how science or the human body works. Some doctors are better about that than others. Unfortunately my obgyn is one of the usual kinds that just gave me a list of drugs I'm allowed to take and foods I'm not allowed to eat with no explanation. My husband and I immediately started wondering how they arrived at this list. Are these drugs that have been proven to be safe, or ones that haven't been proven to not be safe? Are these foods especially dangerous during pregnancy, or just foods they think are unhealthy in general (my do-not-eat list even included pasta, refined sugar, fast food, etc.).So this book gives you the actual evidence for all these recommendations. I found the section on drugs especially interesting, because they're actually put into several categories based on how much evidence they have for their safety. Class A and B have evidence showing they are safe, Class C don't have much evidence one way or the other, Class D have evidence they are unsafe, but they treat a serious condition that is also unsafe for your pregnancy so it might be worth taking them if you have that condition, and Class X are drugs that are unsafe and not worth taking under any circumstances.And it turns out that some of the "forbidden foods" aren't any more dangerous to eat when you are pregnant than when you are not pregnant, while some of them really are more dangerous when pregnant. Maybe my doctor doesn't think that's an important distinction, but I do. The book didn't even mention pasta, but when I had morning sickness, starchy foods like pasta and bread were some of the few things I could easily eat, so I think my doctor just had pasta (and sweets, and fast food) on the list because eating too much might make me gain too much weight. I can't find anywhere else that says that pasta is especially dangerous to eat when you are pregnant, and then this book even goes on to say that gaining a little too much weight isn't that bad, so I'm still eating pasta.I am avoiding the foods that are on the list because they are more likely to contain bacteria that can make you sick, even though the book says Salmonella isn't any worse for you when you are pregnant than when you aren't (but Listeria and toxoplasmosis are). Salmonella poisoning is no fun, and I don't need that extra stress on top of being pregnant, so I'm avoiding those foods even though the book says I'd probably be OK if I ate them anyway. I also gave up alcohol completely, even though the book said an occasional drink is probably OK, but I just couldn't give up coffee, so I just cut back.As others have said, this book is great if you want to make your own informed decisions, instead of being treated like you are stupid and incapable of understanding nuance and uncertainty. It's also reassuring to know that if you drank that one class of wine, ate a little blue cheese, took a Class C drug, or gained 5 pounds above the recommended amount, you probably haven't done serious harm to your fetus. Being pregnant is stressful enough already without having to add any unnecessary worry on top of that.After reading this book, I'm definitely ordering Cribsheet next, before the baby arrives.