WEBVTT - Parenting Expert Emily Oster: The #1 Parenting Mistake That Causes Unnecessary Stress (Use THIS Data-Backed Framework to Debunk the Biggest Parenting Myths!) 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:02.080 One of my favorite things about what you do is 0:00:02.200 --> 0:00:05.680 using data to bust myths. Panicures and pedicures are safe 0:00:05.760 --> 0:00:06.519 during pregnancy? 0:00:06.720 --> 0:00:08.440 Is sex okay? Can I exercise? 0:00:08.520 --> 0:00:09.200 Can you eat spacially? 0:00:09.480 --> 0:00:10.480 Can you drink wine? 0:00:11.080 --> 0:00:15.200 We created a debunking myths game. Oh great, pregnant women 0:00:15.280 --> 0:00:18.799 shouldn't drink coffee? That is a you can't eat sushi 0:00:18.840 --> 0:00:21.800 while pregnant. Also, natural birth is better. 0:00:22.000 --> 0:00:23.959 I hate the phrase natural birth. 0:00:23.800 --> 0:00:25.760 Breast milk or formula. 0:00:25.880 --> 0:00:28.240 People will tell you breastfeeding is free, So I'm sorry. 0:00:28.280 --> 0:00:30.600 Does my time have no value? 0:00:32.360 --> 0:00:34.879 Hey? Everyone, welcome back to on Purpose, the place you 0:00:34.920 --> 0:00:38.479 come to become happier, healthier, and more healed. And today's 0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:41.080 topic is one that you are always asking for. And 0:00:41.120 --> 0:00:44.440 today's guest is someone that has been in high demand, 0:00:44.640 --> 0:00:48.000 so I'm so excited she's here. Parenting has never come 0:00:48.159 --> 0:00:52.559 with more information or potentially more anxiety. And today we're 0:00:52.600 --> 0:00:56.680 joined by best selling author and economist Emily Oster, whose 0:00:56.720 --> 0:01:01.040 books Expecting Better and Crip Sheet sparked a global conversation 0:01:01.480 --> 0:01:04.840 about what the data actually says. If you've ever wondered 0:01:04.880 --> 0:01:07.760 whether all this advice is helping or just making parenting 0:01:07.800 --> 0:01:11.520 more complicated, this is the conversation we've all been waiting for. 0:01:12.040 --> 0:01:14.200 Emily Asta, welcome to on Purpose. 0:01:14.319 --> 0:01:16.399 Thank you for having me. I'm so happy to be here. 0:01:16.520 --> 0:01:19.520 This is such an important subject matter that I feel 0:01:19.760 --> 0:01:24.840 deserves to have time, energy, effort put into. It's going 0:01:24.880 --> 0:01:27.680 to transform our lives, the lives of the children you 0:01:27.760 --> 0:01:30.520 love the most, and I'm so grateful that you've dedicated 0:01:30.560 --> 0:01:33.039 so much of your life to doing this work so impactfully. 0:01:33.200 --> 0:01:34.720 Now, I'm so delighted to be here. I mean, I 0:01:34.720 --> 0:01:37.319 think parenting is hard but also incredibly fun, and I 0:01:37.319 --> 0:01:40.520 feel really lucky to get to be part of people's journey, 0:01:40.560 --> 0:01:41.759 even even a little bit. 0:01:42.040 --> 0:01:46.800 Absolutely, we've probably never had this much data on parenting. 0:01:47.600 --> 0:01:51.600 Has that made parenting better? Or are we still just overwhelmed? 0:01:51.960 --> 0:01:54.040 I think yes, I know. I don't think there's a 0:01:54.080 --> 0:01:57.120 simple answer to that question. If there are clearly places 0:01:57.160 --> 0:01:59.440 where we have gotten data, and we can talk about 0:01:59.480 --> 0:02:03.240 specific examples where we've learned, you know, something from the 0:02:03.320 --> 0:02:08.359 data that has improved survival or the experience of parenting, 0:02:08.480 --> 0:02:12.400 or something that makes everyone happier, and I think there 0:02:12.400 --> 0:02:14.959 are really good examples of that in the evidence. 0:02:15.720 --> 0:02:18.760 It is also true that living in an environment where 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:21.840 one is constantly fed you know, the data says, the 0:02:21.880 --> 0:02:24.799 data says, the data says, or where people are constantly 0:02:24.840 --> 0:02:27.920 looking for you know, what is the evidence that's going 0:02:27.919 --> 0:02:30.040 to tell me that I'm doing this right. I think 0:02:30.120 --> 0:02:33.960 that's actually quite stressful and sometimes makes parenting much harder. 0:02:34.040 --> 0:02:36.519 So some of the time I wish I could sort 0:02:36.520 --> 0:02:38.960 of help people think more about you know, here are 0:02:38.960 --> 0:02:40.880 the pieces of data that are going to kind of 0:02:40.919 --> 0:02:44.760 help help you craft your approach, and here is the 0:02:44.880 --> 0:02:47.519 stuff that really it doesn't matter what you do, and 0:02:47.560 --> 0:02:49.320 stuff trying to look for the right answer, because anything 0:02:49.440 --> 0:02:49.920 is fine. 0:02:50.160 --> 0:02:52.640 Data is really useful, but it is really overwhelming. How 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:55.040 do you approach it differently in a way that's actually 0:02:55.040 --> 0:02:55.680 helping people. 0:02:55.840 --> 0:02:58.000 Yeah, so I think there's really two sort of core 0:02:58.080 --> 0:02:59.919 pieces of what I'm trying to do for people. So 0:03:00.240 --> 0:03:03.280 one is trying to help them understand which of the 0:03:03.320 --> 0:03:06.440 pieces of data they're seeing are real and which are not. 0:03:06.800 --> 0:03:10.160 So there's a lot of confusion of correlation and causation. 0:03:10.320 --> 0:03:12.400 You know, people told, well, if you do this for 0:03:12.440 --> 0:03:14.640 your kid, they'll be better in this way, But if 0:03:14.680 --> 0:03:17.960 you dive into the data, you find that link is 0:03:18.560 --> 0:03:21.919 not not causal. And then the second piece is trying 0:03:21.960 --> 0:03:24.160 to help people prioritize and say, you know, here are 0:03:24.160 --> 0:03:26.520 some things that are really important, and then here are 0:03:26.520 --> 0:03:28.720 some things which even if they mattered a little bit, 0:03:29.080 --> 0:03:33.079 they can't matter a lot. And so, recognizing that parents 0:03:33.480 --> 0:03:36.360 have a limited capacity, that we all have a limited 0:03:36.400 --> 0:03:39.280 capacity to focus on a million different things at once, 0:03:39.680 --> 0:03:41.720 our goal should be to figure out, you know, what 0:03:41.920 --> 0:03:44.400 really matters, and then what really matters enough that it 0:03:44.400 --> 0:03:46.839 should be sort of top priority, and then we kind 0:03:46.880 --> 0:03:49.520 of do the pieces that we that we can do 0:03:49.720 --> 0:03:50.720 in the constraints that we have. 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:53.760 What's the most shocking piece of data that you've come 0:03:53.800 --> 0:03:57.320 across looking at parenting research that really struck you. 0:03:57.640 --> 0:04:00.880 So when I was working on Expecting Better, I one 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:04.280 of the things I looked at was bed rest, which 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:06.920 you know, is actually prescribed to a fairly large share 0:04:06.960 --> 0:04:11.120 of people for a lot of different complications. So people 0:04:11.200 --> 0:04:12.960 are just told, you know, and you can sort of 0:04:13.000 --> 0:04:16.760 see logically where that might you might feel like, well, 0:04:16.800 --> 0:04:18.800 if you're at risk of preterm birth, maybe if just 0:04:18.839 --> 0:04:21.440 lay down, like I don't know, the baby will stay 0:04:21.480 --> 0:04:24.039 in or like there's some kind of logic that connects there. 0:04:24.080 --> 0:04:28.640 But when you actually look at the data, there's almost 0:04:28.960 --> 0:04:31.960 no condition for which bad rest is helpful and many 0:04:31.960 --> 0:04:33.720 conditions for which it's in many ways in which is 0:04:33.720 --> 0:04:36.719 actually harmful. This is something we're so obvious in the 0:04:36.760 --> 0:04:39.200 data that we're doing is not the right thing. And 0:04:39.520 --> 0:04:41.800 it was one of the things that galvanized me to think, Okay, 0:04:41.839 --> 0:04:44.400 we actually really need to show people what the evidence 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:45.920 says so they can make better choices. 0:04:45.960 --> 0:04:48.400 Absolutely, I want to talk about today like lots of 0:04:48.400 --> 0:04:51.800 different kind of phases of the journey of parenting, and 0:04:51.839 --> 0:04:54.840 I wanted to start with getting pregnant. From what I'm 0:04:54.880 --> 0:04:57.279 hearing from people who are trying to get pregnant, it's 0:04:57.320 --> 0:05:00.640 all about thinking, like getting everything right, having some control. 0:05:01.400 --> 0:05:04.000 What's your take on how much we can control when 0:05:04.040 --> 0:05:05.080 you're trying to get pregnant. 0:05:05.240 --> 0:05:07.960 It's a lot more limited than people think. You know, 0:05:08.040 --> 0:05:12.480 people getting pregnant is very stressful for many people, and 0:05:12.560 --> 0:05:16.040 particularly in an environment where you know the environment. I 0:05:16.080 --> 0:05:17.480 think a lot of my readers come in where you've 0:05:17.480 --> 0:05:21.359 waited like a long, you're a little older, which does 0:05:21.440 --> 0:05:23.479 you know? We know fertility declines with age. It doesn't 0:05:23.560 --> 0:05:26.080 drop off a cliff, but it goes down and also 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:28.640 people have like waited and made a lot of investments 0:05:28.680 --> 0:05:30.160 and thought, you know, okay, this is the right time 0:05:30.200 --> 0:05:31.840 in my life, and like now they want to be pregnant. 0:05:31.880 --> 0:05:34.120 Now it's like I waited, I decided the right month, 0:05:34.200 --> 0:05:36.320 like this is my month, and then it doesn't happen 0:05:36.320 --> 0:05:38.120 that month and you're like, wait, but this was my month. 0:05:38.560 --> 0:05:40.680 And so I think there's a there's a kind of 0:05:40.839 --> 0:05:44.839 tension that comes with that, and that unfortunately makes people 0:05:44.839 --> 0:05:47.719 whore trying to get pregnant quite vulnerable to being told 0:05:48.320 --> 0:05:51.720 all kinds of stuff that they could do that is 0:05:51.800 --> 0:05:54.160 not based on evidence, but often costs quite a lot 0:05:54.160 --> 0:05:57.720 of money to improve their chances, for example, by these 0:05:57.760 --> 0:06:00.600 really expensive prenatal vignments. For me, that's like the most 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:02.440 you know, it is important to take a prenatal vitamin. 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:06.440 The one at CBS that costs you know, ten cents 0:06:06.440 --> 0:06:08.600 a pill is fine. It has the things that you need. 0:06:08.960 --> 0:06:11.240 People are buying these prenatal vitamins that cost you one 0:06:11.320 --> 0:06:13.800 hundred and fifty dollars a month and say, you know 0:06:13.839 --> 0:06:15.320 this is don't you want to give your baby the 0:06:15.320 --> 0:06:17.400 best start with the best. Is like, vitamins are all 0:06:17.400 --> 0:06:19.840 the same you know, you don't need to spend it. 0:06:19.880 --> 0:06:22.719 That's like just one sort of small example, and so 0:06:22.839 --> 0:06:25.280 much that marketing is praying on this feeling of like, well, 0:06:25.279 --> 0:06:26.520 I got to get this right, I got to get 0:06:26.560 --> 0:06:29.120 this right. The reality is when you think about, you know, 0:06:29.200 --> 0:06:32.400 what matters for getting pregnant, there's a few things. So 0:06:32.480 --> 0:06:35.320 one is having sex at the right time. So it's 0:06:35.440 --> 0:06:37.360 pretty clear there's only a small number of days in 0:06:37.400 --> 0:06:40.680 the cycle where you can get pregnant, and so some 0:06:40.760 --> 0:06:45.080 cycle tracking and knowing when you're ovulating is important. And 0:06:45.120 --> 0:06:47.960 then you need sperm that is working. So I think 0:06:47.960 --> 0:06:49.760 the other piece of this that maybe I think people 0:06:49.800 --> 0:06:51.920 are almost under investing in is we spend so much 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:55.120 time with women thinking about all the things that we 0:06:55.200 --> 0:06:56.839 need to do, and it is true that that is 0:06:56.839 --> 0:06:59.840 half of the equation, but you also need good sperm, 0:07:00.480 --> 0:07:02.679 and I actually think we're probably under investing and having 0:07:02.720 --> 0:07:06.320 men do some like preconception sperm testing. It's not that 0:07:06.440 --> 0:07:08.880 hard to do, not really very hard at all, and 0:07:08.920 --> 0:07:10.320 there are a bunch of things that men can do 0:07:10.400 --> 0:07:12.400 to improve their quality of the sperm if it turns 0:07:12.400 --> 0:07:15.040 out you have the sperm issue. So people said to me, 0:07:15.120 --> 0:07:17.360 like what should I do? I would say track your 0:07:17.360 --> 0:07:20.000 cycle so you can figure out when you're ovulating, make 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:21.880 sure you have sex at the right time, and get 0:07:21.920 --> 0:07:25.400 your partner sperm tested, and then you know, don't binge, drink, 0:07:25.440 --> 0:07:27.800 and quit smoking. That's kind of it. 0:07:28.840 --> 0:07:30.240 Those are the things within your control. 0:07:30.280 --> 0:07:31.920 Those are the main things within your control. 0:07:32.040 --> 0:07:34.680 Yeah, and what were some of the recommendations for men 0:07:34.720 --> 0:07:37.200 who wanted to improve their sperm counter improve their sperm 0:07:37.280 --> 0:07:37.960 quality as well. 0:07:38.120 --> 0:07:40.520 So a lot of those that there's sort of like 0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:49.200 a category of substances. So smoking, cigarettes or marijuana, heavy drinking, 0:07:49.240 --> 0:07:52.960 these are all known to affect sperm mobility. Enough of them. 0:07:52.960 --> 0:07:54.280 They need to be go to swimming, they need to 0:07:54.280 --> 0:07:58.200 have the right shape, and smoking and drinking affect all 0:07:58.240 --> 0:08:02.760 of those parameters. The other thing is heat, So sperm 0:08:02.760 --> 0:08:05.480 don't like to be hot. Testicles don't make good sperm 0:08:05.480 --> 0:08:09.760 when they're hot, and so sometimes people keep your testicles 0:08:09.760 --> 0:08:11.360 too hot. If you're doing a lot of hot tub 0:08:11.440 --> 0:08:14.000 or a lot of sauna, you're wearing like very tight underwear, 0:08:14.120 --> 0:08:17.520 that can affect sperm count. So sometimes loosening up the 0:08:18.040 --> 0:08:20.160 underwear quitting the sauna can be helpful. 0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:22.640 I liked you've already simplified it to a few things 0:08:22.640 --> 0:08:23.600 that we can control. 0:08:23.840 --> 0:08:26.360 I think that that's both very helpful and often for 0:08:26.440 --> 0:08:29.520 many people, very frustrating, because actually, you know, I think 0:08:29.680 --> 0:08:32.000 the way if you want to get this done, you 0:08:32.040 --> 0:08:34.600 want to be doing something about it every day. Like 0:08:34.679 --> 0:08:36.679 that's at least for many of the people, Like for 0:08:37.080 --> 0:08:39.800 myself when I was in this position, like we were 0:08:39.800 --> 0:08:42.120 trying to get pregnant, I wanted to be investing, you know, 0:08:42.440 --> 0:08:44.560 like every day, I want something to do that's going 0:08:44.640 --> 0:08:48.360 to move me forward. And the advice of sort of like, well, okay, 0:08:48.679 --> 0:08:50.360 if as long as you've done these things, you pretty 0:08:50.400 --> 0:08:53.240 much just like it's just a dice roll, Like you know, 0:08:53.280 --> 0:08:55.480 if you get it exactly right, maybe there's a thirty 0:08:55.520 --> 0:08:57.440 percent chance in a given month that you will get 0:08:57.480 --> 0:09:00.360 pregnant and get another try the next month. Then that's 0:09:00.400 --> 0:09:03.160 sort of all there is. I think that can feel like, well, 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:04.800 I wanted to do, like, but what can I do? 0:09:05.200 --> 0:09:07.840 And I think that is where we get into people 0:09:07.920 --> 0:09:11.760 feeling willing to do a variety of other things that 0:09:11.800 --> 0:09:14.160 feel more like investment. I'll often tell people like you 0:09:14.200 --> 0:09:15.600 can track, you know, you could you want to like 0:09:15.640 --> 0:09:18.400 track your cycle, like set yourself up spreadsheet, like enter 0:09:18.480 --> 0:09:20.240 something in an app every day. If that's the thing 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:23.200 that makes you feel like you're moving, you're moving forward. 0:09:23.480 --> 0:09:25.640 What are some of the mistakes people can make during 0:09:25.679 --> 0:09:28.839 pregnancy that have postpregnancy complications? 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:31.600 So there are certainly some behaviors during pregnancy that have 0:09:31.840 --> 0:09:35.120 you know, potential very long term impacts. So you binge, drinking, 0:09:36.120 --> 0:09:41.240 heavy alcohol consumption during pregnancy, smoking cigarettes during pregnancy also 0:09:41.640 --> 0:09:43.880 you know, not good. And there of course are some 0:09:44.000 --> 0:09:46.920 medications that are very counter indicated during pregnancy. Those are 0:09:47.000 --> 0:09:50.800 kind of the big like behavioral issues that we would 0:09:50.800 --> 0:09:53.079 point to in terms of contributing to birth defects. 0:09:53.320 --> 0:09:53.760 I get an. 0:09:53.720 --> 0:09:57.760 Awful lot of questions from people that are worried, very 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:05.080 very worried about extreamly unlikely exposures are very minimal concerns, 0:10:05.080 --> 0:10:07.400 And I think the reality is there are some of 0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:09.839 these big concerns, but there isn't a bunch of other 0:10:09.880 --> 0:10:13.520 stuff that you shouldn't be doing that matters a tremendous amount. 0:10:13.559 --> 0:10:16.160 There just isn't, and there is research. We're just saying 0:10:16.200 --> 0:10:19.800 that the research doesn't show anything having that bigger like 0:10:19.880 --> 0:10:22.200 we have studied these things deeply enough and looked at them. 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:26.440 Yes, and of course we can always do more research. 0:10:26.920 --> 0:10:28.880 But I would say there's a sort of a couple 0:10:28.960 --> 0:10:31.200 of pieces how I might think about evidence in that case. 0:10:31.240 --> 0:10:33.120 So one is, you know there are places where we've 0:10:33.559 --> 0:10:36.239 studied this and we can see, you know, there's no correlation. 0:10:37.280 --> 0:10:39.040 In some of those cases, you say, well, what if 0:10:39.040 --> 0:10:40.920 there's a very tiny effect. You know, we don't have 0:10:40.960 --> 0:10:43.839 an infinite amount of data, And I'd say, yeah, there 0:10:43.880 --> 0:10:46.240 are almost anything you could say, well, couldn't there be 0:10:46.280 --> 0:10:49.080 a very tiny effect? But those effects are going to 0:10:49.080 --> 0:10:51.880 be so tiny that we probably shouldn't care about them. 0:10:51.880 --> 0:10:55.199 They are in the rounding era of everything else that 0:10:55.600 --> 0:10:57.400 you're going to do. And so so, in some sense, 0:10:57.400 --> 0:10:59.319 getting back to something I said at the beginning, I 0:10:59.320 --> 0:11:01.880 think a lot of this is about thinking about prioritizing 0:11:02.320 --> 0:11:05.000 and understanding that we want to make choices about things 0:11:05.000 --> 0:11:08.079 that are important and not obsessed about every tiny thing, 0:11:08.120 --> 0:11:11.319 even if you know maybe doing this one thing could 0:11:11.520 --> 0:11:15.120 on average cost your kid point ooooh one IQ points 0:11:15.160 --> 0:11:16.439 like that's not important. 0:11:16.840 --> 0:11:18.080 Should be worried about that. 0:11:19.080 --> 0:11:22.240 So I think that's one it's kind of one reason 0:11:22.280 --> 0:11:23.600 we don't know this and then there are many things 0:11:23.640 --> 0:11:26.160 where it's mechanistically it's impossible. You know, the other day 0:11:26.160 --> 0:11:29.480 somebody asked me, you know, my lawn was treated with pesticides, 0:11:29.480 --> 0:11:31.240 and then I went outside and I touched it, and 0:11:31.360 --> 0:11:33.880 I washed my hands really carefully. But now I'm really worried. 0:11:34.080 --> 0:11:37.520 There is no mechanism whereby touching a lawn, even recently 0:11:37.520 --> 0:11:40.600 treated with pesticides and then washing your hands would actually 0:11:40.600 --> 0:11:44.040 impact your pregnancy. Like literally no mechanism, and so it's 0:11:44.080 --> 0:11:46.160 not an interesting thing to study, but it is impossible. 0:11:46.240 --> 0:11:49.400 Yeah, yeah, what's the study that hasn't been done that 0:11:49.440 --> 0:11:50.720 you would love to see happen? 0:11:50.880 --> 0:11:53.640 They're almost an infinite number of alls like that. I mean, 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:56.559 I think one to three. The one I would really 0:11:56.600 --> 0:11:59.760 really like to see is a large randomized trial about SSRIs. 0:12:00.200 --> 0:12:06.040 So a lot of women come into pregnancy using antidepressants. 0:12:06.559 --> 0:12:10.360 Antidepressants are really important for a lot of people's daily functioning. 0:12:11.160 --> 0:12:15.439 Are evidence on the safety of antidepressants a little more complicated, 0:12:15.520 --> 0:12:19.079 so there are some evidence suggesting they may raise the 0:12:19.160 --> 0:12:22.240 risk of postpartum hemorrhage. So not much in the direction 0:12:22.320 --> 0:12:25.320 of affecting the baby, but some things about health and 0:12:25.480 --> 0:12:27.880 just in general, that evidence isn't perfect. We don't have 0:12:27.880 --> 0:12:31.319 a randomized we don't have like large randomized trials. I 0:12:31.360 --> 0:12:33.559 would like to see large randomized trials because they think 0:12:33.600 --> 0:12:37.120 many people are avoiding these medications because they are worried 0:12:37.120 --> 0:12:40.280 about the quality of the evidence, but they are avoiding 0:12:40.320 --> 0:12:43.199 them when they would be very helpful. And I suspect 0:12:43.280 --> 0:12:46.280 that those trials would give us a much better platform 0:12:46.360 --> 0:12:49.520 from which to make decisions about this thing where there 0:12:49.559 --> 0:12:52.560 is just a very clear trade off between some potential 0:12:52.640 --> 0:12:54.640 risks we don't know that much about and they're very 0:12:54.640 --> 0:12:58.079 real benefits. So SSR trials, what I think, like that would. 0:12:57.880 --> 0:13:00.000 Be so fascinating, I feel because with the amount of 0:13:00.920 --> 0:13:05.280 rising people needing mental health medications, antidepressants, whatever it may 0:13:05.320 --> 0:13:08.640 be in that space, only going up knowing how that 0:13:08.760 --> 0:13:11.880 really correlates with make for very very insight. What does 0:13:11.920 --> 0:13:14.080 it take to get something like that done? Like you, 0:13:14.320 --> 0:13:16.480 it's hard, probably already happening, is it. 0:13:16.640 --> 0:13:19.840 That's definitely not happening, Okay, I think it's it's very 0:13:19.920 --> 0:13:21.719 hard to do a study like that for like a 0:13:21.840 --> 0:13:25.439 bunch of different reasons. So one is even the design. 0:13:25.480 --> 0:13:28.679 You worry a little about ethics, so you know, we wouldn't. 0:13:29.040 --> 0:13:30.760 You couldn't do a study where you're forcing people to 0:13:30.840 --> 0:13:33.120 bandy depresses it. Now, that's something you could get around. 0:13:33.120 --> 0:13:34.280 I think you could say, we have a bunch of 0:13:34.320 --> 0:13:36.040 people who are on age depressants, with some of them, 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:37.719 we're going to encourage them to go off, and we're 0:13:37.720 --> 0:13:41.360 going to we're going to not encourage them. Again, that 0:13:41.840 --> 0:13:44.079 has some ethical issues, but you probably could get it. 0:13:44.280 --> 0:13:48.080 You'll probably get that through. I think the other issue is, 0:13:48.200 --> 0:13:50.000 I'm not sure who's going to fund that. So if 0:13:50.000 --> 0:13:53.880 you think about like how science works, like a lot 0:13:53.880 --> 0:13:56.800 of what gets drug companies fund a lot of trials. 0:13:57.240 --> 0:13:59.720 All these drugs are on generic at this point, so 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:01.880 like a large share of them, So their drug company 0:14:01.960 --> 0:14:04.200 is not going to be interested in funding those those trials. 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:06.960 And it isn't clear that like the NIH is interested 0:14:07.000 --> 0:14:09.560 in funding that trial either. And so I think we're 0:14:09.559 --> 0:14:12.040 sort of up against some ethics and also some real 0:14:13.040 --> 0:14:16.640 sort of funding limitations. And it's people don't like to 0:14:16.640 --> 0:14:21.440 experiment on pregnant women, which is for good Yeah, good reasons, 0:14:21.480 --> 0:14:22.520 but it has some costs. 0:14:22.600 --> 0:14:25.160 Yeah, I was going to ask you, what's one thing 0:14:25.200 --> 0:14:27.400 that pregnant women worry about that. You'd like them to 0:14:27.400 --> 0:14:30.240 stop worrying about and stop focusing on something else. 0:14:30.400 --> 0:14:32.320 One thing is people worry a tremendous amount of what 0:14:32.520 --> 0:14:35.720 they eat. I think that that's overblown. Actually, most of 0:14:35.720 --> 0:14:38.760 the food restrictions that people are told about don't make 0:14:38.800 --> 0:14:42.640 any don't really make any sense. People worry a lot 0:14:42.680 --> 0:14:46.040 about exercise. There are a lot that people are told, 0:14:46.080 --> 0:14:49.160 you know, don't exercise in this way, and actually most 0:14:49.200 --> 0:14:52.400 of those, again are totally overblown restrictions. And people should 0:14:52.400 --> 0:14:56.080 be encouraged to kind of keep doing what they what 0:14:56.120 --> 0:14:59.760 they are already doing. And I think people should. If 0:14:59.760 --> 0:15:02.240 you sort of said, like, what should you replace that with? 0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:07.640 I think people could do more to prepare their marriage 0:15:07.760 --> 0:15:11.640 and home life for the arrival of another person that 0:15:11.680 --> 0:15:13.080 requires all of your time and money. 0:15:13.120 --> 0:15:15.280 What would you recommend? How would you go about thinking 0:15:15.280 --> 0:15:15.720 about that? 0:15:15.880 --> 0:15:17.400 If you think about what happens when you have a 0:15:17.480 --> 0:15:21.960 kid to your marriage, you are introducing a new person, 0:15:22.440 --> 0:15:25.520 somebody who you there's a new project, there's a new 0:15:25.520 --> 0:15:28.400 group project, and you care more about this group project 0:15:28.440 --> 0:15:30.920 than you have ever cared about anything in your entire life, 0:15:31.000 --> 0:15:33.160 but you have no idea how to do it. And 0:15:33.200 --> 0:15:35.720 you're working with another person who also has no idea 0:15:35.720 --> 0:15:38.160 how to do it, but really really cares, and you 0:15:38.240 --> 0:15:41.920 might not agree. And also you're extremely tired because you 0:15:41.960 --> 0:15:44.640 haven't slept, and you don't have as much money or 0:15:44.680 --> 0:15:47.880 time as you did before. It's this terrible goodle project environment. 0:15:48.840 --> 0:15:52.280 And so I think one of so I think during 0:15:52.320 --> 0:15:54.520 the pregnancy is a good opportunity to prepare for, like 0:15:54.640 --> 0:15:57.400 how can we make this group project as good as possible, 0:15:57.760 --> 0:16:01.680 knowing that it comes with some you know, some challenges. 0:16:02.400 --> 0:16:04.400 And so one thing I tell people all the time, 0:16:04.440 --> 0:16:07.840 and I think everyone should do is put meetings on 0:16:07.880 --> 0:16:11.200 your calendar for after the baby is born. That there 0:16:11.200 --> 0:16:15.040 should be a like bi weekly check in meeting with 0:16:15.080 --> 0:16:17.520 your partner where you sit down and you talk about 0:16:17.520 --> 0:16:19.840 like what's going well, what's not going well? What can 0:16:19.920 --> 0:16:22.520 we do differently. This is sort of comes a little 0:16:22.560 --> 0:16:24.880 bit out of some of what we know about kind 0:16:24.880 --> 0:16:27.960 of marital satisfaction, which is people like a marital checkup. 0:16:28.000 --> 0:16:29.880 It's an opportunity to say, here's the things I'm doing, 0:16:29.880 --> 0:16:32.600 here's what I'm feeling resentful about, you know, an opportunity 0:16:32.600 --> 0:16:35.600 to connect in a kind of low sort of you know, 0:16:35.720 --> 0:16:38.240 cool state rather than in a hot state. But I 0:16:38.240 --> 0:16:41.200 think early on in people's life you need this much more. 0:16:41.240 --> 0:16:43.240 And if you don't put those meetings on the calendar 0:16:43.360 --> 0:16:45.000 before you have the baby, you will never have them 0:16:45.040 --> 0:16:48.120 because you will not once once the group project starts, 0:16:48.120 --> 0:16:50.160 you're not going to schedule meetings because of all the 0:16:50.360 --> 0:16:52.440 other stuff. I already I already said. 0:16:53.000 --> 0:16:56.040 Yeah, I mean that sounds like really wise advice, especially 0:16:56.120 --> 0:16:58.760 when you explain it like a group project that the 0:16:58.920 --> 0:17:00.480 environment isn't really say out for. 0:17:00.760 --> 0:17:03.240 A lot of parenting is about, you know, if you're 0:17:03.280 --> 0:17:06.920 parenting with another person, is about managing that that relationship. 0:17:07.280 --> 0:17:08.960 We assume that it's all going to be great because 0:17:08.960 --> 0:17:11.119 we love the other person, and I think there's a 0:17:11.160 --> 0:17:13.560 little bit of saying like you could love someone, but 0:17:13.800 --> 0:17:18.560 still running a business with them is different. And this 0:17:18.760 --> 0:17:21.280 is a little bit more like running a business than 0:17:21.320 --> 0:17:22.800 I think most people think. 0:17:23.119 --> 0:17:25.440 Yeah, yeah, we almost think that love is good enough 0:17:25.440 --> 0:17:28.119 when you're having a baby because it's a byproduct of 0:17:28.160 --> 0:17:30.639 your love. But the project is still a. 0:17:30.640 --> 0:17:32.920 Project, is still there, and love is like so important, 0:17:33.000 --> 0:17:35.639 it's the most it is such an important thing, but 0:17:36.160 --> 0:17:38.600 the project is still you know, things still have to 0:17:38.640 --> 0:17:39.480 happen in the project. 0:17:39.680 --> 0:17:41.720 Yeah, absolutely absolutely. I was going to ask you what 0:17:42.040 --> 0:17:44.680 you mentioned this a bit earlier, what are the key 0:17:44.760 --> 0:17:48.399 differences between trying to get pregnant in your twenties and 0:17:48.400 --> 0:17:51.480 in your thirties, and what should people be considering both ways. 0:17:51.920 --> 0:17:56.200 So, you know, our fertility is very high when we're 0:17:56.200 --> 0:17:58.399 in our late teens, which is a convenient time for 0:17:58.440 --> 0:18:00.120 many people to have kids, and then it's sort of 0:18:00.160 --> 0:18:05.080 slowly declines kind of through slowly through the twenties, maybe 0:18:05.119 --> 0:18:07.199 getting a little faster through the thirties, and sort of 0:18:07.240 --> 0:18:11.359 eventually kind of falling off towards towards menopause. So I 0:18:11.359 --> 0:18:13.600 think one thing for people to understand is just you know, 0:18:13.680 --> 0:18:17.000 this is a real factor infertility. So there are plenty 0:18:17.000 --> 0:18:20.840 of opportunities to extend the life of fertility. IVF is 0:18:20.960 --> 0:18:23.959 very effective, egg freezing can be an interesting option, but 0:18:24.000 --> 0:18:26.239 the reality is that it is already upregnant when you're 0:18:26.240 --> 0:18:28.199 older than when you're younger, And that is something that 0:18:28.240 --> 0:18:31.760 I think people should know and at least understand that 0:18:31.800 --> 0:18:34.280 there is some trade off. There is not impossible, but 0:18:34.320 --> 0:18:37.080 it is harder, and then you have to trade that 0:18:37.119 --> 0:18:39.040 off with the fact that you may or may not 0:18:39.080 --> 0:18:41.080 be ready to have a kid when you're twenty, you know, 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:43.080 may not have the partner you want, This may not 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:45.120 be the right time, And so I think just being 0:18:45.160 --> 0:18:47.479 realistic about the existence of those trade offs is kind 0:18:47.520 --> 0:18:50.119 of all you can do in terms of making decisions. 0:18:50.400 --> 0:18:52.960 Is The other piece I would often remind people is 0:18:53.000 --> 0:18:56.200 that your kid doesn't go away after like the first 0:18:56.359 --> 0:18:59.600