---
product_id: 8345647
title: "Expecting Better: Why the Conventional Pregnancy Wisdom Is Wrong--and What You Really Need to Know (The ParentData Series)"
price: "₩37623"
currency: KRW
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 8
url: https://www.desertcart.kr/products/8345647-expecting-better-why-the-conventional-pregnancy-wisdom-is-wrong-what
store_origin: KR
region: South Korea
---

# Expecting Better: Why the Conventional Pregnancy Wisdom Is Wrong--and What You Really Need to Know (The ParentData Series)

**Price:** ₩37623
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- **What is this?** Expecting Better: Why the Conventional Pregnancy Wisdom Is Wrong--and What You Really Need to Know (The ParentData Series)
- **How much does it cost?** ₩37623 with free shipping
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- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.kr](https://www.desertcart.kr/products/8345647-expecting-better-why-the-conventional-pregnancy-wisdom-is-wrong-what)

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## Description

Expecting Better: Why the Conventional Pregnancy Wisdom Is Wrong-and What You Really Need to Know (The ParentData Series) [Oster, Emily] on desertcart.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Expecting Better: Why the Conventional Pregnancy Wisdom Is Wrong-and What You Really Need to Know (The ParentData Series)

Review: Must read! - THANK YOU! I love the way your mind works and this feels like an absolute must read for a couple wanting to be educated about the stats, risks, and reality of pregnancy. Great guide, and big anxiety reducer. I’ve gifted to two other expecting couples.
Review: Informative, entertaining - This approachable, entertaining, well-researched book provides clear and useful summaries of medical studies on a wide range of important pregnancy-related topics: the pros and cons of various pre-natal tests, epidurals, induction, doulas, and home birth; foods that are best to be avoided, and those that are less dangerous than conventional wisdom might have us presume. It is an excellent resource-- it's like a friendly encyclopedia of pregnancy- and childbirth- related medical research! The author emphasizes the fact that medical recommendations come from studies, not from thin air-- and that with a little guidance (which Oster provides), women and their partners can understand those studies, and how to interpret the results in the context of their own lives. Oster shares her own choices (with much self-deprecating humor), but makes it clear that this book is about providing information, not prescriptions. I greatly appreciated her discussions of the origins and evolution of different recommendations (eg. pre-natal testing after 35, bed rest, fetal heart monitoring during labor, episiotomies); it's really informative to see how best practices change from one generation to the next, and how sometimes practices lag behind research. The introduction is available online at the Huffington post; I'd suggest checking that out to get a feel for the book. It's a lot less controversial than many of the reviews below would have you believe. Edit: All the hoopla around the "pregnancy vices" chapter is overshadowing some of the other important contributions of this book. In the interest of helping you decide if the rest of the book is something you might find valuable: One of the main themes of this book is that if you want to act in the best interest of your child, you need to figure out what "best" is. Your doctor can guide you, but you can and should have responsibility and agency in these matters. To a lot of pregnant women, choices about alcohol, coffee, and food are easy-- err on the side of utmost caution. Yet one thing Oster highlights is that most pregnancy-related choices aren't so easily dealt with-- in part because the costs and benefits aren't always clear, and in part because even when they are, the alternatives *all* have costs and benefits worth weighing. Expectant parents have to make choices, choices that involve real tradeoffs for both baby and mother. Non-invasive prenatal screening, amnio, or CVS? Schedule the induction, or not? Epidural, or not? Home, or hospital? This book does fantastic job of presenting the most credible, up-to-date estimates of the costs and benefits associated with each of these choices, and pinpoints particular things about your situation that that might make you weigh the costs and benefits differently than your friend, your OB, or Emily herself. I think this is where the book excels, and really fills a void: chapters about topics that are less inherently buzz-worthy than booze, but perhaps even more difficult to navigate in a sea of murky data and misinformation. The prenatal testing chapter is particularly good.

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #722 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #1 in Motherhood (Books) #4 in Pregnancy & Childbirth (Books) #4 in General Women's Health |
| Customer Reviews | 4.6 out of 5 stars 11,905 Reviews |

## Images

![Expecting Better: Why the Conventional Pregnancy Wisdom Is Wrong--and What You Really Need to Know (The ParentData Series) - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81xswVS+oWL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Must read!
*by L***A on January 31, 2026*

THANK YOU! I love the way your mind works and this feels like an absolute must read for a couple wanting to be educated about the stats, risks, and reality of pregnancy. Great guide, and big anxiety reducer. I’ve gifted to two other expecting couples.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Informative, entertaining
*by E***A on August 21, 2013*

This approachable, entertaining, well-researched book provides clear and useful summaries of medical studies on a wide range of important pregnancy-related topics: the pros and cons of various pre-natal tests, epidurals, induction, doulas, and home birth; foods that are best to be avoided, and those that are less dangerous than conventional wisdom might have us presume. It is an excellent resource-- it's like a friendly encyclopedia of pregnancy- and childbirth- related medical research! The author emphasizes the fact that medical recommendations come from studies, not from thin air-- and that with a little guidance (which Oster provides), women and their partners can understand those studies, and how to interpret the results in the context of their own lives. Oster shares her own choices (with much self-deprecating humor), but makes it clear that this book is about providing information, not prescriptions. I greatly appreciated her discussions of the origins and evolution of different recommendations (eg. pre-natal testing after 35, bed rest, fetal heart monitoring during labor, episiotomies); it's really informative to see how best practices change from one generation to the next, and how sometimes practices lag behind research. The introduction is available online at the Huffington post; I'd suggest checking that out to get a feel for the book. It's a lot less controversial than many of the reviews below would have you believe. Edit: All the hoopla around the "pregnancy vices" chapter is overshadowing some of the other important contributions of this book. In the interest of helping you decide if the rest of the book is something you might find valuable: One of the main themes of this book is that if you want to act in the best interest of your child, you need to figure out what "best" is. Your doctor can guide you, but you can and should have responsibility and agency in these matters. To a lot of pregnant women, choices about alcohol, coffee, and food are easy-- err on the side of utmost caution. Yet one thing Oster highlights is that most pregnancy-related choices aren't so easily dealt with-- in part because the costs and benefits aren't always clear, and in part because even when they are, the alternatives *all* have costs and benefits worth weighing. Expectant parents have to make choices, choices that involve real tradeoffs for both baby and mother. Non-invasive prenatal screening, amnio, or CVS? Schedule the induction, or not? Epidural, or not? Home, or hospital? This book does fantastic job of presenting the most credible, up-to-date estimates of the costs and benefits associated with each of these choices, and pinpoints particular things about your situation that that might make you weigh the costs and benefits differently than your friend, your OB, or Emily herself. I think this is where the book excels, and really fills a void: chapters about topics that are less inherently buzz-worthy than booze, but perhaps even more difficult to navigate in a sea of murky data and misinformation. The prenatal testing chapter is particularly good.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ A very informative, enjoyable read!
*by S***B on November 4, 2015*

As a woman in my mid-twenties and in the first trimester of my first pregnancy, I found this book refreshing! Up until purchasing Expecting Better, I found much of the literature on pregnancy and delivery definitely left something to be desired. It seems that many of the popular pregnancy books only offer blanket advice in a condescending tone; while also assuming that all woman, and therefore all pregnancies, are the same. Too often, advice is doled out to expectant mothers without explanation, and sometimes (it would seem) without foundation. In addition, I felt that many of the aforementioned books barely scratched the surface in some areas e.g., miscarriage, weight gain, and fetal testing. Expecting Better does a fantastic job of laying out the facts and letting the reader decide what is best for her and her baby. She also cites all of the studies that she pulled said facts from. I believe that I have benefited tremendously from reading it, and I would recommend it to others. That being said, the author has received quite a bit of static on some of her more "controversial" topics. Specifically, the topics of alcohol and coffee consumption during pregnancy. I personally was not offended, or put off in the slightest. To be fair, I am not a coffee drinker, and my alcohol consumption (when not pregnant) is typically somewhere around 1-2 beverages a couple times a month. Suffice it to say, these were not major concerns for me. I found the findings among various studies in these areas to be mildly interesting, and nothing more. Moving on to another complaint that comes up a lot in reader reviews of this book: bias. (Insert eye roll.) I would venture to say that MOST nonfiction works out there contain some level of bias. In most cases, (such as this one) the author is writing from personal experience. As stated above, not all women, or all pregnancies are identical- far from it! So, naturally, one may not identify (or agree) with certain aspects of the book, or with the opinion of the author. Expecting Better isn't meant to be a bible for expectant mothers, with all the so called "do's and don'ts" categorized into black and white, or right and wrong. I believe the author's goal was to seek out as much information as possible on the relevant topics, and inform the reader of her findings. My hat's off to her for all her research, much of which was done while pregnant herself. I only wish she had continued a little farther to explore other topics! I would be very interested in reading about studies regarding post partum depression, effects of formula vs breastfeeding, and vaccinations!

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*Product available on Desertcart South Korea*
*Store origin: KR*
*Last updated: 2026-02-28*