Expecting Better
After I announced my pregnancy at my last book club meeting, one of the members insisted that I had to read this book. Getting good information about pregnancy isn't easy. In a lot of cases, this is because it isn't ethical to run the experiments (you can't deny a woman nutrients or insist she drink or smoke while pregnant). A lot of information is anecdotal and a lot of recommendations are conservative, because most people agree that it's better to be safe than sorry. But this wasn't good enough for Emily Oster (or, honestly, most women). She wanted to understand where the recommendations were coming from, gather as much information as she could, and make informed decisions for herself. Oster is aware that, given the same information, different women will make different decisions. Her goal with the book is to present as much information as she can, so her audience can make their own decisions. That said, every now and then it felt like she was pushing her own age...