Author of the week: Emily Oster

last updated 8 January 2015

Emily Oster has declared war on the rules governing pregnancy, said Erica Schwiegershausen in NYMag.com. Recently, while expecting her first child, the University of Chicago economist began to wonder how many of the prohibitions her doctor passed along—no alcohol, no caffeine, no cleaning cat litter—were grounded in solid research. So she combed through hundreds of medical studies and came to the -conclusion—which she advances in her new book, Expecting Better—that doctors have been overselling many of the risks for convenience’s sake. “I think there’s a general feeling that women should like rules,” she says. “One of the reasons to have rules is so it’s like, ‘Well, you don’t have to think about this, because we’ve already thought about it for you.’ And sometimes that’s okay. But it was frustrating when I did want to think more about it.”

Oster should have stuck to economics, said Jacoba Urist in TheDailyBeast.com. Confident in her ability to interpret medical data, she ignores the fact that low-percentage risks are more meaningful in medicine than in her own field, then recklessly encourages other women to analyze the data themselves. But Oster shouldn’t be vilified just for writing a book that’s only meant to be a conversation-starter, said Kristen Kemp in Parents.com. “The book isn’t a substitute for your doctor—not by any means,” Oster says. “It is a way for women to be more informed and less anxious.” To the author, that means recognizing that a little wine or coffee is fine, and sometimes even cleaning a cat box.