Emily Oster really hopes you don’t need to buy her new book. The 44-year-old tenured Brown University economics professor and firebrand has published a handful of bestselling titles, all focused on childbearing and child-rearing. “I always say I’m not going to write another book after I write a book because it feels like so much work,” she said. “The first three books really track my own journey, from pregnancy to raising little kids to having older kids.”
But the fourth installment in her “ParentData” – also the name of her blog, podcast and newsletter – quartet, The Unexpected, swerves into thornier territory than its predecessors: pregnancies with complications, and the risks inherent in any subsequent pregnancies. For the first time, she is not writing about her own experiences. “I was inspired by the questions that I got from other people rather than the questions that I had myself,” she said.
Pregnancy complications are not a niche topic. About 50% of pregnancies involve one of the complications Oster outlines in her new book. Working with her frequent collaborator, the New York-based maternal fetal medicine specialist Nathan Fox MD, Oster sifts through reams of data on a range of conditions and outcomes relevant to pregnancy, including pre-eclampsia, miscarriages, C-sections and gestational diabetes. In her straightforward delivery, she explains the known causes of various unhappy scenarios as well as the likelihood of their recurrence in subsequent pregnancies.
Oster – a mother of two who has 374,000 Instagram followers and fans in Mandy Moore and Amy Schumer – has made a name for herself with her no-nonsense breakdowns of conflicting data sets that concern maternal health and best practices. “I’m trying to create value,” she said. “I’m trying to create meaning for people or help people to the extent that a book can provide help.” She has also made waves for her controversial takes, such as making the case for schools returning to in-person learning during Covid, or for pregnant women in their second or third trimester enjoying a glass of wine if it so appeals.
Oster spoke with the Guardian about what to expect when you’re anxious about expecting.
The Unexpected: Navigating Pregnancy During and After Complications by Emily Oster and Nathan Fox is out via Penguin Press on April 30.