Pregnancy comes with a lot of things. Along with the excitement, swollen feet, morning sickness and fear that comes with pregnancy, most women will say it also comes with a lot of advice.
All the advice can sometimes sound like a tedious chorus of "Eat this," "Don’t drink that," "Sleep like this," and, of course, "Don’t wait too long to actually get pregnant in the first place!"
This phenomenon led one expecting mother and University of Chicago economist to ask a simple question in reply: “Why?” And after plenty of research, Emily Oster said she discovered that much of the common wisdom about pregnancy isn't properly supported by data that shows clear benefits and consequences.
According to Oster, “There was a lot of advice. It didn’t always agree and it was always very vague.”
She said that one of the reasons that women don’t have the clear-cut facts about the decisions they make during pregnancy is that obstetricians have very limited time with their patients. This means they can’t always explain the numbers and risks in full detail. She also said that women often question advice and restrictions less when they are pregnant.
Here is some of the convention pregnancy wisdom that she addressed:
Caffeine:
“In moderation, caffeine is fine," she said. "The big concern is that it can increase the risk of miscarriage -- especially early on. There are many studies of this. All of them say that, in moderation, caffeine is fine… up to 200mg a day is considered fine. Once you get up to six, eight cups of coffee a day, there does seem to be some elevated risk of miscarriage.”
Alcohol:
“When you look at studies of women who drink a little bit in pregnancy -- not more than a couple drinks in the first trimester (and) not more than a drink a day in later trimesters -- you don’t see any evidence that their children do worse on IQ tests or have more behavior problems than the children of women who abstained," she said.
Smoking:
“Exactly because we all care about making these choices in the best way possible and we all care so much about this experience, you want to approach it from a place where you are trying to get all the facts and evaluate all the risks so you know which things -- like smoking -- you really do want to avoid because they are very dangerous,” she said.
