Expecting Better: Why The Conventional Pregnancy Wisdom Is Wrong - And What You Really Need To Know Quotes
"Biological processes don’t work like this. Your eggs don’t wake up on the morning of your 35th birthday and start planning their retirement party."
"The value of having numbers—data—is that they aren’t subject to someone else’s interpretation."
"You can’t do anything to get pregnant once ovulation has come and gone. You can’t yet figure out if you are pregnant. You’re just in limbo."
"The crucial thing is to hit the day of ovulation or the day before."
"The key issue is timing: you need sperm to be around at the exact moment that the egg is ready."
"This is not what I got. What I got was best described as vague reassurance."
"You might not want to know everything that is going on."
"I am sure we can all see the case for wanting to stay well inside the danger zone, but drawing the line at any drinking at all seems, frankly, ridiculous."
"Even if you smoke at the start of pregnancy, there are still huge benefits to quitting later on."
"Children of mothers who smoked 1 to 9 cigarettes a day during pregnancy were more than 4 times as likely to die of SIDS as those whose mothers did not smoke."
"Women who were encouraged to quit smoking had babies who were about 2 ounces heavier."
"Smoking is already bad for you, and it’s really bad for your fetus."
"The good news is that you can experience these benefits anytime."
"The best option is to quit smoking cold turkey as soon as you find out you are pregnant."
"Smoking during pregnancy is dangerous for your baby."
"The risks of miscarriage do decrease over the course of the pregnancy."
"Around 10 to 15 percent of pregnancies that are developing normally at 6 weeks will end in miscarriage."
"Older age and previous miscarriage increase your risk."
"Don’t worry too much about sushi and raw eggs—they might carry bacteria, but these bacteria are no worse when you are pregnant than when you are not."
"Mercury is bad for your baby. Omega-3 fatty acids are good for your baby."
"People who eat a lot of fish have smarter kids on average, even with the greater mercury exposure."
"Vomiting every day for weeks is more than the average person experiences."
"The risk of miscarriage from CVS is about 1 in 800 but most studies are not large enough to allow us to reject the claim that there is no increased risk from this procedure."
"Naturally, she is Penelope’s favorite member of the household, so now we are stuck with her forever, if we weren’t before."
"Forget about asking Jesse to clean the litter box; I should have been pushing him to plant the flowers."
"Getting too hot during your first trimester—be it from a fever, a hot tub, or some type of superhot yoga—can lead to an increased risk of neural tube defects like spina bifida."
"Having sex won’t affect it at all; if you feel in the mood, go right ahead."
"Most evidence suggests that restrictions on back sleeping are overblown, although one recent study disagrees."
"The complications associated with a very small baby are much more serious than those associated with a very large baby."
"In principle, exercising while pregnant could have other benefits."
"Kegels prevent urinary incontinence and quite possibly improve your pushing ability in labor."
"You cannot increase your chances of a particular gender by changing the timing of sex before conception."
"Unisom is safe to take. Ambien is also probably safe, but the evidence is a bit more mixed."
"You should avoid anything in categories D and X."
"The biggest prohibition is on normal sit-ups or crunches, where you lie flat on your back."
"Both very large and very small babies face additional risks, although too-small babies face greater risks."
"There is no evidence that bed rest will prevent preterm labor. Avoid it."
"Usually when we consider a medical treatment with no demonstrated benefits and large demonstrated risks, we think it’s a bad idea."
"The majority of babies arrive within a week on either side of your due date."
"The epidural is very effective pain relief. But it increases the chance of some complications for the mother."
"Knowing what the evidence says doesn’t make the decision for you. It just lets you make the decision in an informed way."
"It’s almost as if there is too much information."
"At the end of the day, it really doesn’t matter where she comes out of, what drugs you did or didn’t have, what procedures were or were not done. What matters is that she is a person, and she’s yours."
"Mostly, childbirth doesn’t go quite like you expect it to."
"It’s not easy to visualize the size of Mom’s pelvis... and ultrasound estimates of the baby’s size are often misleading."
"For hours it was just Jesse, me, Melina, and Nurse Tera."
"There are just too many possibilities to have any real plan."
"The whole process is a bit abrupt and overwhelming: all of a sudden there is another person there."
"When I talked to her about it, she said that for her it’s just the opposite: she accepted that despite picking the best midwife she could find and doing things as safely as possible there was still some very small increased risk."
"The best you can do is have some idea of what’s coming, and think through the most likely scenarios. Be prepared, but don’t be committed."