“Emily Oster is the non-judgmental girlfriend holding our hand and guiding us through pregnancy and motherhood. She has done the work to get us the hard facts in a soft, understandable way.” –Amy Schumer

*Fully Revised and Updated for 2021*

What to Expect When You’re Expecting meets Freakonomics an award-winning economist disproves standard recommendations about pregnancy to empower women while they’re expecting. From the author of Cribsheet, a data-driven decision making guide to the early years of parenting

Pregnancy–unquestionably one of the most profound, meaningful experiences of adulthood–can reduce otherwise intelligent women to, well, babies. Pregnant women are told to avoid cold cuts, sushi, alcohol, and coffee without ever being told why these are forbidden. Rules for prenatal testing are similarly unexplained. Moms-to-be desperately want a resource that empowers them to make their own right choices.

When award-winning economist Emily Oster was a mom-to-be herself, she evaluated the data behind the accepted rules of pregnancy, and discovered that most are often misguided and some are just flat-out wrong. Debunking myths and explaining everything from the real effects of caffeine to the surprising dangers of gardening, Expecting Better is the book for every pregnant woman who wants to enjoy a healthy and relaxed pregnancy–and the occasional glass of wine.

Award-winning Emily Oster debunks myths about pregnancy to empower women while they’re expecting.

Pregnant women are often treated as if they were children, given long lists of items to avoid – alcohol, caffeine, sushi – without any real explanation from their doctors about why. They hear frightening and contradictory myths about everything from weight gain to sleeping on your back to bed rest from friends and pregnancy books. In EXPECTING BETTER, Oster shows that the information given to pregnant women is sometimes wrong and almost always oversimplified.

EXPECTING BETTER overturns standard recommendations for alcohol, caffeine, sushi, bed rest and induction, while putting in context the blanket guidelines for fetal testing, weight gain, risks of pregnancy over the age of 35, and nausea, among others.

Oster offers the real-world advice one would never get at the doctor’s office. Knowing that the health of your baby is paramount, readers can know more and worry less. Having the numbers is a tremendous relief – and so is the occasional glass of wine.