(Her conclusion: a glass of wine a day in the second or third trimester wasn’t a problem, and she could keep drinking coffee guilt-free.) She then spent several days performing a personal meta-analysis: evaluating the merits of the studies, throwing out the weak ones, and making an assessment of the risks. Confronted with the usual mixed messages-her doctor told her that a glass of wine was “probably O.K.”-she went home, logged in to PubMed, a database of medical literature, and downloaded every study on alcohol and caffeine going back to the nineteen-eighties. In her day job, she pores over medical journals and government data sets for insights into how we treat diseases such as Huntington’s, diabetes, and H.I.V./ AIDS. She cut me off, saying, “There’s a book you need to read.” The book was by Emily Oster, an economist at Brown University who studies health care. Navigating this gantlet, when I was pregnant, I called a friend who had recently given birth. they do it in France, right? What about that trending Times article, “ Eating Nuts During Pregnancy Tied to Brain Benefits in Baby”? Or the fact that Kourtney Kardashian avoided microwaves after she had a baby? But we all know that the coffee thing is B.S., and that it’s perfectly fine to have a glass of wine, because . . . The handout says stick to “one small cup” of coffee and stay away from alcohol. Is there toxoplasmosis on the cat’s butt? Is the hair salon full of poisonous fumes? Complicating things is the gap between the official recommendations and what people actually do. Daily life takes on a frightening new dimension. O.K., this might not be exactly what the doctor says, but it’s what many women hear. And don’t eat any deli meats, or you could murder your baby.” Then comes the Talk, which goes something like: “Remember to take it easy for the next nine months. First comes the visit to your doctor, where you receive the (hopefully) happy news. Pregnancy! A time of wonder and anticipation. This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.
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