Expecting Better Audiobook By Emily Oster cover art

Expecting Better

Why the Conventional Pregnancy Wisdom Is Wrong - and What You Really Need to Know

Preview

Audible Standard 30-day free trial

Try Standard free
Select 1 audiobook a month from our entire collection of titles.
Yours as long as you’re a member.
Get unlimited access to bingeable podcasts.
Standard auto renews for $8.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Expecting Better

By: Emily Oster
Narrated by: Emily Oster, Jonathan Todd Ross
Try Standard free

$8.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $18.00

Buy for $18.00

“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

What to Expect When You're Expecting meets Freakonomics: an award-winning economist and author of Cribsheet, The Family Firm, and The Unexpected disproves standard recommendations about pregnancy to empower women while they're expecting.

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.

* This audiobook includes a downloadable PDf of charts, graphs and an Appendix from the book.
Parenting & Families Social Sciences Pregnancy Motherhood Sexual & Reproductive Health Relationships Infertility Healthy Pregnancy

Critic reviews

Praise for EXPECTING BETTER:

"A revelation for curious mothers-to-be whose doctors fail to lay out the pros and cons of that morning latte, let alone discuss real science. And it makes for valuable homework before those harried ob-gyn appointments, even for lucky patients whose doctors are able to talk about the rationale behind their advice."-- New York Times

"A book... that pregnant women won't want to miss." --Parents Magazine

"Oster's advice cuts through the emotion, myth, fear of malpractice litigation and looks at the numbers. A mother herself, Oster's interest isn't just curiosity, it's the same thing that motivates every new mom... and Oster's ability to break down the data into informed analysis is a refreshing break from the hysterical hearsay that often dominates the conversation.—Babyzone

"Gives moms-to-be a big helping of peace of mind!" --Harvey Karp M.D., bestselling author of The Happiest Baby on the Block

"It took someone as smart as Emily Oster to make it all this simple. She cuts through the thicket of anxiety and received wisdom, and gives us the facts. Expecting Better is both enlightening and calming. It almost makes me want to get pregnant."--Pamela Druckerman, New York Times bestselling author of Bringing Up Bébé
Evidence-based Approach • Comprehensive Information • Professional Narration • Empowering Decision-making • Natural Reading

Highly rated for:

All stars
Most relevant
Entre a mi embarazo con miedo… después de vivir una perdida… este libro me ayudó a quitarme muchos miedos y a aprender a cuestionarme las “reglas” que te dan mientra estás embarazada. Soy una mujer que ha comido sushi ocacionalmente, me tomo una cerveza cuando se me antoja y fuera de los achaques eh tenido un embarazo muy feliz.

Lo ame!!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Excellent work and the author is doing a good job for a non-professional narrator, but for me it was quite slow and playing it at 1.2x speed in the Audible app helped magnificently.

Great content, best listened to at ~1.2x speed

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

My wife is pregnant and of course a kaleidoscope of questions flooded our minds.
Parents dumping their opinions on what you can and can’t do. Everyone giving their input with no facts. All I can say is Thank you.

14 yrs in the making

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Great guide with data driven explanations. It guides you throughout pregnancy stages and explains it in a way you can understand and feel a bit better walking into your first appointments.

Data to Pregnancy

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Loved the approach to this book! It’s about time someone critically reviewed the literature on pregnancy advice and restrictions rather than relying on word of mouth and Facebook.

Finally some facts!!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

See more reviews