The Importance of Choice in Pregnancy

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I was surprised with the number of things that I ended up spending a lot of time researching and the book kind of if my idea about writing the book sort of evolved slowly. Did out of curiosity, did you know you were going to write this book early on later? When did you come to decision to write a book? So certainly not at the beginning.

Emily Oster of the University of Chicago and author of Expecting Better talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about her book on pregnancy and the challenges of decision-making under uncertainty. Oster argues that many of the standard behavioral prescriptions for pregnant women are not supported by the medical literature. The conversation centers around the general issue of interpreting medical evidence in a complex world using pregnancy advice as an application. Alcohol, caffeine, cats, gardening and deli-meats and their effect on pregnant women are some of the examples that come up. The conversation closes with a discussion of Oster's work on hepatitis-B and the male-female birth ratio.