#197 — Never drink coffee! Don’t have sushi! And cats are dangerous!

Getting pregnant means entering into a world of advice and fear about all the things that could potentially go wrong.

But what does the data say? Are these “pregnancy rules” based on truth or myth?

When economist Emily Oster got pregnant, she also got curious about the advice she was getting. Some recommendations were based on her age alone, and sometimes she found it difficult to get any answers at all. So, she started digging into the data.

Eventually, Emily’s research became Expecting Better: Why Conventional Pregnancy Wisdom is Wrong—and What You Really Need to Know, a book about how to make your own decisions, the things that matter most when it comes to pregnancy, and why it’s not so easy as just making blanket rules for everyone.

Emily Oster is a highly-respected economist and professor at Brown University. Her research interests range from development and health economics to research design and experimental methodology. Emily’s work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the bestseller SuperFreakonomics, and FiveThirtyEight, and more.

This interview originally aired in October 2019.

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