Speaker 1: Hey, fam, Hello Sunshine.
Speaker 2: Today on the bright Side, Award winning economist and New
Speaker 2: York Times best selling author Emily Auster is here for
Speaker 2: an all new segment. It's called mom Friend. We're talking
Speaker 2: about mindful parenting, cutting through the noise and bringing the facts.
Speaker 2: Emily brings research to the questions that we've been asking
Speaker 2: for years, everything from can you have wine or sushi
Speaker 2: during pregnancy to what the data says about screen time.
Speaker 1: It's Tuesday, July thirtieth.
Speaker 3: I'm Danielle Robe and I'm Simone Boyce and this is
Speaker 3: the bright Side from Hello Sunshine, a daily show where
Speaker 3: we come together to share women's stories, laugh, learn and
Speaker 3: brighten near day.
Speaker 2: So Simone, you know, I'm not a parent yet, but
Speaker 2: I am very excited about today's guests, mostly because she's
Speaker 2: freaking brilliant.
Speaker 3: She's such a genius, and she is such a gift
Speaker 3: to anyone who is a parent or is considering becoming
Speaker 3: a parent. I can remember exactly when I came across
Speaker 3: Emily Oster's work. Tell me I was nine months pregnant.
Speaker 3: I was a reporter on the campaign trail when word
Speaker 3: of this highly contagious virus began to spread and we
Speaker 3: were in an information vacuum at the time. I'm normally
Speaker 3: a pretty chill person, but I started to get really nervous.
Speaker 1: I mean I can imagine why.
Speaker 3: Yeah, first baby, first time giving birth, obviously, first pandemic.
Speaker 3: And I turned to Emily's research to help me understand, Okay,
Speaker 3: what do I need to do to keep my baby
Speaker 3: safe during this time? What kind of precautions do I
Speaker 3: need to take? I mean, we all remember what it
Speaker 3: was like then, we were washing our groceries, all that
Speaker 3: crazy stuff. But since then, her research and her platform
Speaker 3: parent data, they continue to add so much value to
Speaker 3: my parenting. Like take sleep training for instance. I don't
Speaker 3: know if this has made its way into your algorithm,
Speaker 3: but there are all these accounts online, these mommy accounts
Speaker 3: that love to parent. Shame anyone who decides to sleep
Speaker 3: train their kids. You're gonna love this because this means
Speaker 3: that you get your kids and yourself on a nightly
Speaker 3: sleep schedule.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is a lot of my friends do this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's paramount during that time when you are so
Speaker 3: sleep deprived. And also I just think I think it's
Speaker 3: the best thing for your kids. It's the best thing
Speaker 3: that you can do for them, and after doing my research,
Speaker 3: my husband and I decided that this was going to
Speaker 3: be the best plan for our family. And Emily's research
Speaker 3: actually shows that all that parents shaming that takes place
Speaker 3: around this topic is not founded at all, because sleep
Speaker 3: training improves sleep for babies and parents without causing long
Speaker 3: term harm to children.
Speaker 2: What you're talking about is really taking a lot of
Speaker 2: the guesswork away because I hear stories from my friends
Speaker 2: who are parents all the time, and a lot of
Speaker 2: the advice is anecdotal, it's behavioral, and Emily comes from data.
Speaker 2: She's a numbers and data person because she's an economist
Speaker 2: and she earned her PhD in economics from Harvard and
Speaker 2: is now a professor of economics at Brown University.
Speaker 1: And she's a sensation.
Speaker 2: Online and I understand why she's bringing peace to people
Speaker 2: during this constant barrage of parenting advice, and she's determining
Speaker 2: what's fact from what's fiction. What I think is really
Speaker 2: interesting is that her career path came from this personal
Speaker 2: pain point that she had because when she was pregnant
Speaker 2: with her first child, she felt really overwhelmed by all
Speaker 2: of the information and the options that she was given.
Speaker 2: So she decided to put on her researcher's hat and
Speaker 2: began crunching the data to guide her decisions.
Speaker 3: And thank god she did, because from that work came
Speaker 3: her book Expecting Better, Why the conventional pregnancy wisdom is
Speaker 3: wrong and what you really need to Know. And in
Speaker 3: the pages of that book, she debunks all these long
Speaker 3: standing myths about pregnancy to empower women while they're expecting.
Speaker 3: That word is so key to feel empowered. You know.
Speaker 3: I've heard some people refer to this book Danielle as
Speaker 3: the Bible of modern parenting, because it is that comprehensive,
Speaker 3: that thorough, that clarifying. I mean, she breaks it down
Speaker 3: from trimester to trimester, from conception all the way to
Speaker 3: labor and delivery.
Speaker 1: She also sources data on fertility too.
Speaker 2: I have a feeling everyone listening is going to want
Speaker 2: more Emily even after our conversation, so I want to
Speaker 2: share with you exactly how she supports families. She's the
Speaker 2: founder and CEO of parent Data, which is a data
Speaker 2: driven guide to pregnancy, parenting and beyond that includes a
Speaker 2: weekly newsletter and a podcast.
Speaker 3: Well, our new favorite mom friend is here. Let's bring
Speaker 3: her in, y'all. Emily welcome to the bright Side. I
Speaker 3: am so delighted to be here. Thanks for having me, Emily.
Speaker 2: You are in Rhode Island, which I am so jealous about.
Speaker 2: There is no summer better than a summer on the
Speaker 2: East Coast.
Speaker 4: It is true. We suffer. We suffer in the winter,
Speaker 4: and then we get a couple of incredibly nice months
Speaker 4: to go to the beach, so wonderful.
Speaker 2: Well, today is about data driven parenthood, and that's a
Speaker 2: term that is that actually new for me. Can you
Speaker 2: explain data driven parenting and what does it mean to
Speaker 2: be a data literate parent?
Speaker 4: So my core belief is that we can make better
Speaker 4: decisions in our pregnancy and parenting if we have evidence
Speaker 4: and data that can inform them. And data comes from
Speaker 4: studies typically, So I spend a lot of time in
Speaker 4: the academic literature looking at what we learn from surveying
Speaker 4: people or from doing experiments on people, and so a
Speaker 4: lot of what I do is I try to provide
Speaker 4: people with answers to the questions like can I have
Speaker 4: sushi when I'm pregnant? What does the data say about that?
Speaker 4: Or what does the data say about potty training? And
Speaker 4: it's not so much that data is going to give
Speaker 4: you the answer to your question. But for many things
Speaker 4: it's either very relaxing or it will help you frame
Speaker 4: how you might make the best decision for yourself.
Speaker 3: So what I think is so interesting about what you do,
Speaker 3: Emily is that most of the parenting advice out there
Speaker 3: as a mom that I run up against is feelings focused.
Speaker 3: It's all about centering emotion and the child's feelings, and
Speaker 3: it's all very nebulous and abstract, and having the data
Speaker 3: is so helpful and it's so grounding. So can you
Speaker 3: talk about for a moment, why are numbers so important
Speaker 3: in this conversation that so often skews into behavioral territory.
Speaker 4: I think numbers are really important because they ground us
Speaker 4: in something we can connect on. If we're not able
Speaker 4: to say what we're trying to accomplish, or how could
Speaker 4: you measure what you're trying to accomplish with a number,
Speaker 4: I think it's very difficult to imagine making a decision.
Speaker 4: So for me and I think for many of the
Speaker 4: people that I think this approach resonates with a lot
Speaker 4: of what resonates is being able to say, Okay, this
Speaker 4: is the question I'm trying to answer here's what it
Speaker 4: would mean to get the right answer, and here's the
Speaker 4: piece of evidence that I need to answer that we
Speaker 4: can like touch and connect on and be like, we
Speaker 4: agree on this number being important, and let's figure out
Speaker 4: what it is and let's use it in our decisions.
Speaker 4: And that, I think is the key part. That it's
Speaker 4: a concrete fact that disciplines the way that we approach
Speaker 4: decision making.
Speaker 3: So what do you do you, Emily Auster? Whenever you
Speaker 3: run up against a parenting situation that you feel unprepared
Speaker 3: to deal with, do you start thinking of that thesis
Speaker 3: question first and then you go seek out the evidence?
Speaker 3: How do you approach your parenting philosophy?
Speaker 4: So my kids are pretty big, My kids are old,
Speaker 4: and so one of the things about having old kids
Speaker 4: is one encounters fewer problems, but when you encounter them,
Speaker 4: they're very large. And so when something comes up that
Speaker 4: we really need to engage with, it does require often
Speaker 4: much more time. So usually I first I just panic
Speaker 4: and say something I don't mean, and then later I say, well,
Speaker 4: actually let's revisit that conversation. But it is I think
Speaker 4: very amenable to this kind of more discipline and approach
Speaker 4: to say Okay, what are we trying to decide. Let's
Speaker 4: think about what's the question we're trying to answer, and
Speaker 4: then let's think about what's the evidence, logistics, data, what
Speaker 4: are the things we need to know to answer this question?
Speaker 1: And then let's try to make a decision.
Speaker 4: And with bigger kids, it's more like, let's make a
Speaker 4: decision with together with the kid. With smaller kids, it's
Speaker 4: more like, let's make a decision with your partner. But
Speaker 4: in my own parenting, one of the things I try
Speaker 4: very hard to do is, at least for large decisions,
Speaker 4: make them very deliberately, So actually try to not make
Speaker 4: decisions on the fly, but really think through carefully what
Speaker 4: the right approach to the decision, and then how can
Speaker 4: we make a decision we're happy with at least feel
Speaker 4: like we have made the decision in the right way,
Speaker 4: even if it turns out to be wrong, which sometimes
Speaker 4: it does.
Speaker 2: What does the data say about the generational divide in
Speaker 2: terms of parenting approaches between boomers, gen X and millennials.
Speaker 4: So there's something things that are very clear in the
Speaker 4: data that have changed because evidence has changed. So sometimes
Speaker 4: when I see people running into generational conflict around data,
Speaker 4: it's like, literally what we know has changed. So, for example,
Speaker 4: should you put your baby to sleep on their back?
Speaker 4: This is something where people are always coming to me
Speaker 4: and saying, oh, my mother in law says, you put
Speaker 4: it to sleep on its stomach, it sleeps a lot better. Like, yeah,
Speaker 4: but since you were a kid, we learned it's safest
Speaker 4: to put your baby to sleep on the back, and
Speaker 4: that's the new rule.
Speaker 1: And your you know, input is not changing. That we're
Speaker 1: done with that, you're just straight up wrong.
Speaker 4: And then some of these things are places where maybe
Speaker 4: we've gotten a little bit of data or a little
Speaker 4: bit of a sense of something, but also just norms
Speaker 4: have changed. So when we talk about discipline, it is
Speaker 4: true that the presence of physical punishment has declined a
Speaker 4: lot over time. Some of these kind of gentle parenting
Speaker 4: strategies have risen. Some of that is for data reasons,
Speaker 4: some of it it's not. So you can certainly see
Speaker 4: in the data that change in the way people approach this.
Speaker 4: And I think it's useful sometimes to separate out the
Speaker 4: places where we learned more versus the places where we
Speaker 4: just decided that one thing was better.
Speaker 1: We're learning so much, but we have to take a
Speaker 1: quick break.
Speaker 2: We'll be right back, and we're back with economist Emily Oster.
Speaker 2: I have a lot of friends who are struggling with
Speaker 2: their parents and explaining why they're doing things differently. Do
Speaker 2: you have any advice in that realm in terms of
Speaker 2: effective ways to defend or explain a new approach to
Speaker 2: the older generation.
Speaker 4: I often tell people two things. One, your parents or
Speaker 4: parents in law did raise you. So there's sometimes I think,
Speaker 4: a moment to listen and to hear what they think
Speaker 4: about how you could do things differently, And then there
Speaker 4: is a moment to just say, thanks very much for
Speaker 4: your input, this is how we're doing it.
Speaker 1: And I think.
Speaker 4: People feel often so strongly about explaining and so strongly
Speaker 4: about like I've got to convince you that I'm right,
Speaker 4: and sometimes you just have to let it go. My
Speaker 4: mother in law, when I was pregnant with my daughter,
Speaker 4: told me that she knew it was going to be
Speaker 4: a girl. So before we knew about the jenner and
Speaker 4: knew it was going to be a girl because the
Speaker 4: heartbeat was fast.
Speaker 1: And then I had pulled up this.
Speaker 4: Paper hundreds of people which showed that there was no
Speaker 4: correlation between heart rate and the baby's sex completely, like,
Speaker 4: totally clear, obvious with tables.
Speaker 1: Anybody could see it.
Speaker 4: I explained it to her, it's my job to explain things, vinature,
Speaker 4: not to be a girl. And she was like, see
Speaker 4: I was right. And I was like, but here's this evidence,
Speaker 4: and she was like, nah, I don't know. I just
Speaker 4: think probably I was right, and like, I've never been
Speaker 4: able to convince her.
Speaker 1: I had to let it go. I had to let me.
Speaker 1: Why would any mother in law go up against you?
Speaker 5: Though?
Speaker 4: No, she doesn't read, she doesn't read my I love
Speaker 4: her very much, but she doesn't really think much of
Speaker 4: She doesn't.
Speaker 1: You know, Ah, you could be right, but I'm not
Speaker 1: sure to that point.
Speaker 2: What does the data say about mother in law daughter
Speaker 2: in law relationships?
Speaker 1: They're fraught, they are fraught. You don't need data. You
Speaker 1: don't need data that's not really We get.
Speaker 3: Plenty of anecdotal Here's the thing about being pregnant. Everyone
Speaker 3: has an opinion about how you should be pregnant, what
Speaker 3: you should do with the baby after it's here. And
Speaker 3: in your books Expecting Better crib Sheet, the Family Firm,
Speaker 3: The Unexpected, You explore parenting and pregnancy myths, and there
Speaker 3: were so many that I turned to you for and
Speaker 3: you helped me sort through a lot of my own questions.
Speaker 3: But one major area of ambiguity for a lot of
Speaker 3: women is drinking during pregnancy and then also drinking during breastfeeding.
Speaker 1: What does the data tell us about that?
Speaker 3: Can you have that one glass of red during your
Speaker 3: last trimester pumping dumping?
Speaker 1: Sort it out for us?
Speaker 4: All right, So let's start in pregnancy. So we know
Speaker 4: that heavy drinking, especially early in pregnancy, is very damaging
Speaker 4: and can cause birth defects and long term neurological problems.
Speaker 4: The question people often come to me then with, though,
Speaker 4: is like, what about having an occasional drink particularly later
Speaker 4: in pregnancy? And when we look at data that focuses
Speaker 4: on that level of drinking, and there's a lot of
Speaker 4: this because it's much more common to having occasional alcoholic
Speaker 4: beverage in Europe or Australia, and there's a lot of
Speaker 4: data that comes from there. When we look at data
Speaker 4: on that, we actually don't see those kind of negative outcomes.
Speaker 4: We don't really see much of anything in terms of outcomes.
Speaker 4: So this doesn't mean everybody should drink during pregnancy or
Speaker 4: has to. Obviously, but if one is asking about an
Speaker 4: occasional drink, particularly in the second and third trimesters, there
Speaker 4: just isn't any data to suggest that that would cause
Speaker 4: bad outcomes.
Speaker 1: And then in terms of breastfeeding, and then in.
Speaker 4: Terms of breast feed it's in some ways even more
Speaker 4: encouraging because with breast milk, it's actually very easy to
Speaker 4: test for how much alcohol is in the breast milk. Right,
Speaker 4: So the only reason your baby would be exposed to
Speaker 4: to alcohol is through the breast milk. So you could
Speaker 4: have somebody drink a lot and then you could test
Speaker 4: the alcohol content of their breast milk. So in studies
Speaker 4: that do this, they would have women drink say four
Speaker 4: tequila shots in an hour, which would definitely impair your
Speaker 4: ability to parent and is not an encouraged amount of
Speaker 4: drinking at all. But when you test the breast milk
Speaker 4: after that level of drinking, it has the same alcohol
Speaker 4: content as a glass.
Speaker 1: Of orange juice. Basically wow.
Speaker 4: So it just turns out this idea that breast milk
Speaker 4: is an important source of alcohol is not true. So
Speaker 4: people ask me, oh, I'm going to Cabo and I
Speaker 4: want to have like one margarita, Absolutely have two MARGARINAE.
Speaker 1: Four, you can have four tequila shots in an hour exactly.
Speaker 4: Don't do that because you will feel terrible in the
Speaker 4: morning and you will regret this nighting kavo. But from
Speaker 4: the breast milk standpoint, it's okay.
Speaker 1: Wow, that is wild. I feel like this is new data.
Speaker 3: Even since I was breastfeeding, I didn't know that the
Speaker 3: transferable alcohol was so small.
Speaker 4: So if you think about it, it's about the same
Speaker 4: concentration as in your bloodstream. If you really were like
Speaker 4: I definitely am nervous about any idea that there would
Speaker 4: be anything one drink two hours and then it's out
Speaker 4: of your bloodstream. I sometimes people have this sense with
Speaker 4: pumping and dumping, like it like builds up in the
Speaker 4: breast milk and then you have to pump to get
Speaker 4: it out. But that's not the way it works. You
Speaker 4: don't store tequila in your boobs.
Speaker 3: That was a myth that I heard, and I investigated
Speaker 3: to the best of my ability and discerned that it.
Speaker 1: Was not valid for my life.
Speaker 3: All right, let's talk about screens, because this is a
Speaker 3: huge part of the national conversation right now around parenting.
Speaker 3: We're seeing so many schools starting to crack down on
Speaker 3: banning cell phones in kid twelve classrooms. Florida, Indiana just
Speaker 3: a couple of the states who have implemented some of
Speaker 3: these measures. What does the data say about introducing screens
Speaker 3: to kids even before we get to the classroom? What
Speaker 3: is the day to say about the right time to
Speaker 3: introduce screens to kids?
Speaker 4: I want to totally change how we talk about this
Speaker 4: because they think so much of the conversation around screens
Speaker 4: adopts this idea that like, screens are bad and at
Speaker 4: some point you'll be forced to introduce them. But every
Speaker 4: moment that your kid spends in time on the screens
Speaker 4: is basically a moment in which you're a bad parent,
Speaker 4: and you're just like bad parenting it up. And I
Speaker 4: would like parents instead to just think about time and
Speaker 4: think about screens being something that is a part of
Speaker 4: a balanced diet of time, and thinking when you use screens,
Speaker 4: when you have your kids in front of screens, about
Speaker 4: what else they would be doing with that time. Are
Speaker 4: kids on screens ten hours a day and so they're
Speaker 4: not really engaged with school, They're not really engaged with
Speaker 4: their family. Is everyone watching screens at dinner instead of
Speaker 4: talking to each other. We are screens getting in the
Speaker 4: way of homework. Those are the kinds of things where
Speaker 4: you say, like, that's not a good use of screens.
Speaker 4: If your kids are watching forty five minutes of television
Speaker 4: every night so you can cook dinner in peace and
Speaker 4: then everyone can get together and be more relaxed, that
Speaker 4: is a really good use of screens. If the alternative
Speaker 4: is you screaming at them and not having any time
Speaker 4: to yourself and not being able to parent, it is
Speaker 4: clearly better to have them watch screens. So I would
Speaker 4: just really encourage people to think about screens as not good,
Speaker 4: not bad, not any particular way, but just something that
Speaker 4: you incorporate in a way that balances with your families
Speaker 4: overall life.
Speaker 3: Emily, I could kiss you through the screen right now.
Speaker 3: I just I think this perspective is so refreshing because
Speaker 3: I beat myself up all the time when my kids
Speaker 3: are watching TV. My oldest son, Logan, he's four years old.
Speaker 3: He's obsessed with movies. I genuinely think he's going to
Speaker 3: do something with movies day, but it's such a point
Speaker 3: of contention because he always wants to watch it, and
Speaker 3: we're always trying to moderate how much TV he gets.
Speaker 3: And I am really committed to raising kids who are
Speaker 3: outdoors more than they are hooked up to a screen
Speaker 3: or they're reading more, Like that's very important to me.
Speaker 3: But the amount of times I have beat myself up
Speaker 3: and felt guilty over like my kid's screen time, this
Speaker 3: was like a godsend for me, this whole conversation.
Speaker 4: And people ask me things like is it okay for
Speaker 4: my kid to watch television on the airplane?
Speaker 1: Like what are you kidding?
Speaker 4: The alternative is they're ruining everyone else's day, Like of course.
Speaker 4: So I just think that is almost like we've gotten
Speaker 4: into a place where it's not the conversation is not helpful,
Speaker 4: and it's not helping people make good decisions.
Speaker 1: It's just making people feel good. Yeah, but I will.
Speaker 4: Say I would separate this, and I think in general
Speaker 4: we should separate some of the screen stuff from the
Speaker 4: question about phones in schools. Yeah, So I wish that
Speaker 4: these conversations didn't get quite so mingled, because there is
Speaker 4: a reason not to have phones in schools, which is
Speaker 4: that they are distracting that it's just not a good
Speaker 4: idea to have kids with effectively a handheld video game
Speaker 4: when they're supposed to be doing math.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Emily, can you share an example where the data
Speaker 2: contradicted a widely accepted.
Speaker 1: Parenting myth or traditional advice.
Speaker 4: So there's a good example in pregnancy, which is about
Speaker 4: bed rest.
Speaker 1: So a lot bed rest.
Speaker 4: Has been like a commonly prescribed both folk wisdom based
Speaker 4: and medical based treatment for a lot of complications in
Speaker 4: pregnancy with preterm labor or other things, more or less
Speaker 4: just like why don't you just lay down and then
Speaker 4: you know that'll fix it right up. And it turns
Speaker 4: out in randomized trial data there's basically no complication for
Speaker 4: which bed rest is actually helpful.
Speaker 2: Huh.
Speaker 1: Interesting, and it seems like it would be helpful.
Speaker 4: I mean, this is what it's really tricky about anecdote
Speaker 4: versus data, and why studies are so important.
Speaker 1: Because if you have a bunch.
Speaker 4: Of people who were in threatened preterm labor, you know,
Speaker 4: they start having contractions at thirty three or thirty four weeks,
Speaker 4: and you put them on bed rest, most of the
Speaker 4: time they will go to term. Because most of the
Speaker 4: time people who were in threatened pre term labor will
Speaker 4: go to term.
Speaker 1: But that would happen if they weren't on bed rest.
Speaker 4: But if what's happening is you're just putting everyone on
Speaker 4: bed rest, you kind of never learn that, Like, it
Speaker 4: isn't the bed rest, it's just that's the baseline rate.
Speaker 4: So when they do randomized trials, that's how you learn, Oh,
Speaker 4: actually the group we didn't put on bed rest also
Speaker 4: had the same outcomes, and then you can do better.
Speaker 1: Still a lot of people are put on bed rest.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's a great example, Emily.
Speaker 3: If you are chronically online like me, I am sure
Speaker 3: that you come across parenting videos that just set you off,
Speaker 3: and I'm sure you've got some hot takes locked and
Speaker 3: loaded in there. This is your opportunity give us a
Speaker 3: hot take something you've come across on social media recently
Speaker 3: that you got to sound off on.
Speaker 4: So I spend a lot of time talking to people
Speaker 4: about daycare, and a lot of people send their kids
Speaker 4: to daycare. And I will preface this by saying that
Speaker 4: the evidence is quite clear that high quality daycare is
Speaker 4: great for kids, and it does not lead them to
Speaker 4: have terrible outcomes and turn into serial killers. And in fact,
Speaker 4: the outcomes are very very similar for kids who go
Speaker 4: to daycare.
Speaker 2: Kids.
Speaker 4: It's all very neutral, and I spend a lot of
Speaker 4: time in my books talking about these data.
Speaker 1: The other day, I saw a.
Speaker 4: Reel on Instagram in which someone was interviewing someone else
Speaker 4: and the person said, do you know what happens when
Speaker 4: you dropped your baby at daycare?
Speaker 1: They think you died? I just Lenny.
Speaker 4: People sent me this like, oh my god, does my
Speaker 4: baby think I got I was like, first of all,
Speaker 4: how would you know? Okay, one of my friends was like, well,
Speaker 4: when you come back, do they then think that you're resurrected?
Speaker 1: Because that all so it seems kind of amazing.
Speaker 4: But it was such a clear illustration of the way
Speaker 4: we like hit people with these panics, like your baby
Speaker 4: thinks you're dead. Every day they think you're dead because
Speaker 4: of this selfish choice you made. It's like, there's no
Speaker 4: evidence for that, there's no reason to think that, and
Speaker 4: yet we're pushing this out on people, and you're just
Speaker 4: opening up your Instagram trying to look at makeup ads
Speaker 4: or watch Ballerina farm and then it's like here, that's
Speaker 4: right there, your baby thinks you're dead.
Speaker 1: This is why the world needs Emily Oster. It's like, see,
Speaker 1: your baby doesn't think you're dead.
Speaker 3: Wait, while I have you here in your brilliant brain,
Speaker 3: I have so many parents in questions. I want to
Speaker 3: ask you the whole toxic dies in children's food like popsicles, candy.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm getting an eye roll. I like where this
Speaker 1: is going.
Speaker 3: Should we be as panicked about red dye in our
Speaker 3: children's food red forting?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: No, There's a lot of this evidence is in this
Speaker 4: flavor of like coral versus causation. People are like, oh,
Speaker 4: you know kids who there's more hyperactivity, kids who eat
Speaker 4: a lot of foods with red dye. Well, also, all
Speaker 4: the demographics of those families are really different, the diagnoses
Speaker 4: rates are really different.
Speaker 1: There's tons of things that are really different.
Speaker 4: It's like a very classic place where seeing that people
Speaker 4: who consume a lot of something are different, how do
Speaker 4: you know it is that versus any of the other
Speaker 4: differences across the groups. And we do not have any
Speaker 4: direct evidence, in fact, some small amounts of direct evidence
Speaker 4: that this does not matter.
Speaker 3: So no, okay, So we can't just keep all of
Speaker 3: this delicious Emily Oster wisdom for ourselves. We've got to
Speaker 3: broaden it out with questions from you, our listeners about
Speaker 3: pregnancy and fertility.
Speaker 2: Yep, that's what's coming up after the break. Stay with us.
Speaker 3: We're back with economists and New York Times bestselling author
Speaker 3: Emily Oster. So Emily, our bright Side besties have some
Speaker 3: questions for you when it comes to pregnancy.
Speaker 1: I'm ready. Here's our first question from a bright Side
Speaker 1: bestie named Antonia.
Speaker 6: Hi, I am thirty two and trying to get pregnant,
Speaker 6: and i recently had a blighted ovum and I'm curious
Speaker 6: how common they are and also if there's anything that
Speaker 6: can be done to try to prevent having one again
Speaker 6: in the future.
Speaker 7: Thanks.
Speaker 1: Can I just ask a question? Yes? What is a
Speaker 1: blighted ovum?
Speaker 4: A blighted ovum is a type of early miscarriage in
Speaker 4: which there's an implantation but it doesn't develop into an embryo.
Speaker 1: Got it.
Speaker 4: It is a reasonably common issue and a reasonably common
Speaker 4: cause of early miscarriage, and often you would not necessarily
Speaker 4: know if an early miscarriage was because of this or
Speaker 4: because of something else.
Speaker 1: In general, we.
Speaker 4: Talk about early first trimester miscarriage. It is very common,
Speaker 4: much more common than many people think. Something like a
Speaker 4: quarter of pregnancies will end in miscarriage. In the first trimester,
Speaker 4: and fortunately most of those people will go on to
Speaker 4: have healthy babies later, and having had one miscarriage does
Speaker 4: not put you at much higher risk for later miscarriages.
Speaker 4: If people have had two or more, it's good idea
Speaker 4: to have more follow up on that, but for the
Speaker 4: most part, there is very very good prognosis.
Speaker 1: Here's another question from Natalia.
Speaker 7: If you're thinking about delaying your motherhood, what age is
Speaker 7: a good age to start thinking about freezing your eggs
Speaker 7: and when is it potentially too late.
Speaker 4: The answer to this is a general answer about how
Speaker 4: fertility changes with age.
Speaker 1: Our fertility is very high.
Speaker 4: When we are teenagers, but mostly we're not ready for
Speaker 4: other reasons to have a baby at that time, and
Speaker 4: your fertility is declining to some extent throughout your entire
Speaker 4: reproductive life, and it then declines more precipitously in your forties,
Speaker 4: typically leading to menopause in the early fifties. So if
Speaker 4: people ask it when is the optimal time to freeze eggs,
Speaker 4: it's probably in your twenties when you are most likely
Speaker 4: to have the most number of eggs that are healthy
Speaker 4: and are normal genetically. As people age, their eggs are
Speaker 4: more likely to pick up chromosomal issues, and so you're
Speaker 4: less likely to have many eggs which could be fertilized.
Speaker 4: But there's no point at which you'd say this is
Speaker 4: a complete waste of time to do. We don't actually
Speaker 4: know that much about egg freezing and how likely it
Speaker 4: is to result in live births later. We just don't
Speaker 4: have that much follow up. Egg freezing is a pretty
Speaker 4: new technology.
Speaker 1: I did it.
Speaker 2: My doctor's office said the same thing, Emily, But that
Speaker 2: under thirty five is really preferred.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean this under thirty five rule relates to
Speaker 4: a kind of general idea that we have that like,
Speaker 4: after thirty five you enter the realm of geriatric pregnancy
Speaker 4: and begin to fall off some kind of old Lady cliff,
Speaker 4: And that's not really well supported in the data. Fertility
Speaker 4: doesn't tank at thirty five. You know, it's lower at
Speaker 4: thirty five than at thirty four. It's lower at thirty
Speaker 4: four than at thirty three. There's no sharp cliff at
Speaker 4: thirty five. But many places will nevertheless adopt a kind
Speaker 4: of thirty five cliff, not for super data based reasons.
Speaker 1: That's interesting. Our next question comes from janus Hi.
Speaker 5: Emily, so I am just starting to learn about perimenopause,
Speaker 5: and I wanted to ask what are the chances of
Speaker 5: getting pregnant during perimenopause?
Speaker 4: So first of all, I have to plug on parent data.
Speaker 4: We have a newsletter written by an endocrinologist called hot
Speaker 4: Flash which is all about perimenopause and menopause. So for
Speaker 4: those of you like me who are in perimenopause, it
Speaker 4: is very helpful. Fertility declines through your forties as it
Speaker 4: keeps going, but it is possible to get pregnant during perimenopause.
Speaker 4: Women continue to have avulatory cycles. Maybe not every cycle
Speaker 4: is ovulatory, but about a quarter of women in their
Speaker 4: last cycle, the last menstrual cycle before menopause, will have
Speaker 4: an ovulatory cycle, which means that they could get pregnant
Speaker 4: during that cycle. So it is less likely that you
Speaker 4: will get pregnant during perimenopause, and particularly less likely that
Speaker 4: you'll have a pregnancy that would carry to term, but
Speaker 4: it is definitely still possible, which is why if you
Speaker 4: do not want to get pregnant, you should be using
Speaker 4: some form of birth control.
Speaker 3: If you are sexually active. I have one quick question
Speaker 3: follow up. As an economist and a statistician, I mean
Speaker 3: you are assessing data all the time. I'm curious, when
Speaker 3: you are surrounded by so much evidence, do you still
Speaker 3: continue to form deeply held beliefs or do you hold
Speaker 3: everything a bit more loosely.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's an interesting question.
Speaker 4: I think that because of understanding better how evidence evolves,
Speaker 4: I am probably more comfortable with the idea that we
Speaker 4: might change what we are thinking as more evidence comes in.
Speaker 4: So there are things where I'm more convinced, say, like
Speaker 4: I think the evidence for that is really strong for
Speaker 4: this reason or that reason. But the idea that we
Speaker 4: think something now, but later we might think something different
Speaker 4: when new evidence comes in.
Speaker 1: That's like the core of.
Speaker 4: Being an academic, of doing science, and so I think
Speaker 4: it's much easier to be in that mindset than if
Speaker 4: you have this idea that like, some of these rules
Speaker 4: or guidelines are stated by some authority which knows for
Speaker 4: sure that they're true.
Speaker 2: Do you find yourself parenting similar to how you were
Speaker 2: parented in some ways?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I mean I think in some ways very similarly. And
Speaker 4: then there are some things which I want to try
Speaker 4: to do differently. But there are so many, like simple
Speaker 4: things which I remember as a kid, my mom would
Speaker 4: get this peanut butter, you know, the natural peanut butter.
Speaker 1: That you have to like stir up. And I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get Jiff.
Speaker 4: There was this commercial that was like choosy moms choose Jeff,
Speaker 4: and I always wanted.
Speaker 1: I was like, I want that, Like it's spread so nice.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: There's like this commercial and it looks like peanuts and
Speaker 4: then you spread it. And it was like, I have
Speaker 4: such a vivi memory of being like, when I'm a parent,
Speaker 4: we're gonna have Jeff.
Speaker 1: And here I am with like the stir up natural
Speaker 1: peanut butter. And it's like you ended up not being
Speaker 1: a choosy mom.
Speaker 4: I was not a choosy mom. Just like I'm just
Speaker 4: like an old lady mom with natural peanut butter.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 1: Emily Oster, We love your brain. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for talking with us. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 3: Emily Asker is an award winning economist, Professor of economics
Speaker 3: at Brown University, and New York Times bestselling author. Emily
Speaker 3: is also the founder and CEO of parent Data, a
Speaker 3: data driven guide to pregnancy, parenting, and beyond.
Speaker 2: Emily will be back soon for another iteration of mom
Speaker 2: Friend so if you have a parenting question that you'd
Speaker 2: like her to answer, please send it to us at
Speaker 2: Hello at the Brightside podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: That's it for today's show.
Speaker 2: Tomorrow, financial therapist Lindsey Bryan Podvin is here to talk
Speaker 2: money and mental health for another iteration of Wellness Wednesday.
Speaker 2: Listen and follow The bright Side on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 3: I'm Simone Boye. You can find me at Simone Voice
Speaker 3: on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 1: I'm Danielle Robe on Instagram and TikTok. That's r O
Speaker 1: b A. Y. See you tomorrow, folks. Keep looking on
Speaker 1: the bright side.