November 14, 2024 • 27 mins
Today we are back with another installment of “Mom Friend,” a judgment-free zone to explore the often-overwhelming work of parenting. Emily Oster is back. She is an economist, bestselling author of “Expecting Better” and “Cribsheet,” and is the CEO of ParentData. We unpack what the data says about all the parenting concerns that arise from birth through the preschool years.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hey fam, Hello Sunshine. Today on the bright Side, we're
bringing data driven research to parenting and tackling all of
your biggest parenting questions with Emily Auster. She's an economist,
bestselling author, and the founder and CEO of parent Data.
Her book Cribsheet is a textbook on everything you need
to know about newborns through the preschool years. It's Thursday,
(00:24):
November fourteenth.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
I'm Simone Boyce, I'm Danielle Robe and this is the
bright Side from Hello Sunshine, a daily show where we
come together to share women's stories, to laugh, learn and
brighten your day.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Danielle, the topic of today's episode is really taking me
back to those early days coming back from the hospital. Mmm,
tell me more. Well, all of it is new, none
of it is anything you've ever experienced before, so you're
kind of just like flying by the seat of your pants.
You're accepting help wherever you can get it, and I
think that is one of the hardest parts. It's like
(01:01):
knowing if you're making the right choice and knowing where
to take advice from, knowing who to take it from.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
You know. I actually just went to brisk this week
and it's so exciting to see my girlfriends become mothers.
They step into this whole new personhood. It's a completely
new role, and you know, they're so emotional about it too.
And I've heard them talk about those first few months,
even the first couple of years. There's so much joy
(01:27):
and a lot of stress because of the unknown. There's
no textbook, and everyone has an opinion on how to
do it, including you know, the grandparents and the aunts
and uncles. And so today we're really going to aim
to take the guesswork out of parenting and offer some
research back tips to help you feel confident about the
decisions that you're making, or will make, or have made.
(01:49):
What's interesting to me is I'm not even a parent yet,
and there's a lot of things I'm curious about. So
joining us today is Emily Auster. Emily is an award
winning economist, a professor of economics at Brown University, and
New York Times bestselling author. Emily's also the founder and
CEO of parent Data, a data driven guide to pregnancy, parenting,
and beyond.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Emily has such an impressive body of work, So there
are so many different places that we could take this conversation,
but today we decided to hone in on her book Cribsheet.
Let's get into it, Emily Oustar, this feels so good
to say, welcome back to the right side. Thanks for
having me back. Well, we're so thrilled to have you back.
And today we're taking it all the way back to
(02:31):
the beginning with your book Crib Sheet, which is a
data driven guide to better, more relaxed parenting from birth
all the way to preschool. So we want to start
at the first three days. There's some pretty big decisions
that you have to make while you're still at the hospital,
which can be difficult because you're in this really strange
state of mind after giving birth. You focus on two
(02:52):
key decisions that new parents have to make, cord clamping
and skin to skin contact. Why are these two choices
so p So.
Speaker 4 (03:01):
In the book, I wanted to focus on things where
there was a decision, but also where there's some data
to inform what you do. And these are two examples
of places where we have good data that suggests that
in these particular cases that delaying the cord clamping and
that having some early skinned skin can be beneficial.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
And so it feels important for people to know what
are the benefits of delayed cord clamping.
Speaker 4 (03:25):
So the idea behind delayed cord clamping is that you
take a little bit longer, you know, not like an hour,
but like ninety seconds before you clamp the abilical cord
or cut it, and that lets some of the blood
from the abilical cord go back into the baby, and
particularly for pre term babies, but even for full term babies,
this extra blood puts them at lower risk for anemia,
(03:47):
So that is the benefit there.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
I've heard a lot about the importance of skinned skin
contact with the baby. Does it differ for men and
women at all?
Speaker 1 (03:56):
So some of the.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
Better evidence we have about this is in promoting breastfeeding success,
and so that is a place where, of course the
person breastfeeding would benefit the most. But there's also again
even stronger for pre term maybe's reason to think that
temperature regulation and neurological regulation can be affected by this
(04:18):
skin to skin contact, and that would be true for
men and for women.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
So good from dad.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Also, what exactly is considered skin to skin contact?
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Is there a duration?
Speaker 2 (04:29):
No?
Speaker 4 (04:29):
I think it's just often people try to get the
baby on skin to skin as early as possible, so
they start rooting around for the boob and then doing
some of that when it works for everybody is kind
of recommended. But it's not like you must do this
for an hour or everything is terrible right, or you
must do it all the time.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Okay, Next, we're moving on to some questions about bathing
your baby after they're born for the first time. What
do the data tell us about the right time to
bathe the baby? Really have to do that?
Speaker 4 (05:01):
You know, there used to be this idea that you
would like wash the baby off and like before you
present it to the dad, you know, like you know, oh,
beautiful clean package. Oh wow, But we don't wash the
baby right away anymore. So there used to be that
would almost be the first thing, like the baby be
washed off and then given in this like wrapped up
clean package. But we now don't do that for some
(05:23):
of the skin to skin contact reasons. Generally there will
be some wiping off of the blood and other stuff
that gets on your baby. Sometimes babies will be bathed
in a tub bath at the hospital, and sometimes they
won't be. There's actually no particular reason that your baby
needs to have a bath for a while, and once
(05:44):
people are home, it's not like you have to bathe
them every day or every other day or even pretty much. Ever,
their hands will start to smell, so that's like a
good signal that maybe they should have a bath. They
get milk in their hands and then it like rots,
and then you can give.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Them a bath. Once you smell the smell.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
It's yeah, when they start of you and you like
open up their hands and it's kind of like coated
and sort of black, like rotted milk bathing, that's well, I.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Remember disgusting the two of you. This is not what
I imagined. I think the way that we did it
is we did the first bath whenever the umbilical cord
fell off yep, which is about two weeks.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
And yeah, that sounds about that's when we did it.
It was so terrible we didn't do it again for
weeks and weeks.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Yeah. I actually loved our first bath experience. But it's
a wild card.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
For we have this video. There's like three adults, our
cat is involved. Oh gosh, like a total disaster.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Okay, dumb question, but why is the first bath such
a big deal?
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Don't you just like do it in the sink? I
think it's sentimental. I think like you're you know, you're
in postpartum, you just gave birth. There's something sentimental about
cleansing the baby for the first time. I don't know,
maybe I'm adding unnecessary meaning to it, but it did
feel like a milestone.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
I feel like everything that is the first thing you
do with your first kid feels like yeah, and so
it's just like that's I don't remember the first time.
I could not tell you when we first bathed my son.
It could have been months after he was my second kid.
I just have no idea.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Oh, my first one, i'd actualely remember. Gets like, I
don't know, has he ever bathed? He's ten years old.
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Maybe one of my best friends just had a baby
and one of the things that she and her husband
have been talking about is fluctuating weight of the new baby.
What is the average amount of weight loss for an
infant that's normal?
Speaker 4 (07:29):
Generally, for a breastfed infant, losing up to ten percent
of their birth weight is considered normal. So for the
first period after birth, there isn't a lot of milk.
It can take two or three days for milk to
come in. There's some colosterum early on but that isn't
a lot of calories, and babies will lose some weight,
(07:51):
and this is often quite anxiety provoking for parents, but
it is like a totally normal part of how the
system is set up. If there is more extensive weight
loss than that, sometimes you will be encouraged to supplement
briefly until the milk comes in. But for yeah, so
something up to ten percent is considered totally typical. So
they will weigh your baby when they're born. They'll weigh
(08:12):
them in the hospital. When you go to the pediatrician
at four days, they'll weigh them again. So this isn't
something where I think parents have to be like getting
on and off the scale and monitoring it. Your doctor
will let you know if there's a problem with weight
and talk to you about what to.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Do about it. All right, moving on to feeding, which
can be a huge source of stress and shame for
new moms. I think it's been really heartening to see
that the discourse around this topic has really expanded in
the last few years. In your book, you reference a
study from twenty fifteen from the Journal Pediatrics, and this
study was all about weight loss in breast fed infants
(08:48):
in the hours after birth. What did the findings tell us?
Speaker 4 (08:51):
What we learn in this study is that there's variation
in weight loss across babies, but also across vaginal births
u is cesarean sections, with babies that are born by
cesarean section actually losing a bit more weight over time.
There's also we get a sense of just how common
a lot of weight losses and how quickly it happens.
(09:13):
So over the first four days, the average baby is
losing about eight percent of their body weight. So even
if you're not at ten percent, babies are losing a
substantial I mean eight percent of your body weight feels
like a substantial amount, and I think just really important
for parents to understand like that's typical and then it
should start coming back in the kind of that sort
(09:35):
of third day.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
And what do the data show about supplementing milk supply
with formula the best way to do that. The data
is very encouraging about that.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
So I think that many people worry that if you
supplement early on, it will ruin your breastfeeding relationship forever.
That just doesn't really show up in the data when
we look at what happens in terms of breastfeeding success.
For people who are supplemented with a bottle or try
to supplement with a cup or some other method that's
supposed to be more preserving, it just doesn't seem to
(10:06):
matter for long term success. And I think that's really
important for people to hear because there is so much
pressure to breastfeed and this combination of feeling like I
have to breastfeed, but my baby's losing too much weight.
But what if I supplement and then this ruins everything forever?
Speaker 1 (10:23):
We could just wade.
Speaker 4 (10:24):
Dial down the anxiety there, like some way loss is normal,
but also if you have to supplement, it is absolutely
not the end of the world by any stretch.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Okay, we need to take a quick break, but we'll
be right back with economist and New York Times bestselling
author Emily Oster. And we're back with economist Emily Oster.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Emily, I'm always so curious about your own personal experiences.
I read that when you brought your baby home, Penelope,
you broke down and you were crying in your basement.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
It was a nice face. It wasn't like it. It's not,
but yes it was. I was crying in the basement. Well,
what were you feeling in that moment.
Speaker 4 (11:11):
So there are two very vivid memories of this sort
of return home, one which was just very confused and
one which was very sad. So I remember we first
got home with my daughters, like bringing in the car
seat and being like, oh my god, what do I do?
Like I can't believe they let me take this thing home,
Like I don't know, I have no idea what I'm doing.
It's going to wake up, I don't know what happens.
(11:33):
And then there was this period a couple of weeks
in when I was so tired, and I think that
we under it's hard to conceptualize how tired you're going
to be at the beginning, and even sort of remembering
as a parent of an older kid, like it's hard
to put yourself back.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
In that point.
Speaker 4 (11:49):
But I was sitting in the basement just thinking I
will never feel rested again. That's it, Like I'm never
going to feel like I have rested again. And that's
a very depressing thought, particularly when you are very tired.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Yeah, what's the most encouraging piece of research that you've
come across about postpartum, Because when you're navigating it as
a new mom, it can feel like you're in this
wilderness where no one is going through it to the
degree with which you're going through it, and it can
be a very isolating experience.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
Encouraging wise, the thing I worry in some ways the
most about is when people's like true sort of postpartum
depression remains undiagnosed. I think some of the most encouraging
data is that if we did adequate screening of people,
a huge share of postpartum depression could be caught and
(12:44):
the outcomes once we find that someone has postpartum depression,
there are good treatment methods. You can take SSRIs while
you are breastfeeding. Absolutely, we can also think about other
kinds of non medication therapy, and so I think the
evidence is suggests that this screening, which is very simple,
very simple screening tools, that those can be effective. I'd
(13:04):
love to combine it with evidence showing that we can
make sure that that gets to everybody and that even
people who are not going to a six week postpartum
visit are getting the help that they need.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
There. Okay, feels like we need to do a whole
separate episode on postpartum, So we'll put a pin in
that one for now, But then we got to talk
about what happens in that transition when you bring your
baby home. Family members, friends are going to have a
lot of advice and tell you you should do this,
you shouldn't do that. First up, what does the research
(13:34):
say about swaddling? What should new parents keep in mind?
Speaker 4 (13:39):
Swaddling is good when you swaddle, which is you know,
involves wrapping your baby up in fabric, typically a custom
mased s wattle blanket, because no one can actually do
it with a regular blanket, although I.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
Think it is in principle possible.
Speaker 4 (13:53):
But we know from research where they bring babies into
the sleep lab, we know that babies wake up less
if there's swat and we can they can actually see
this is like quite cool. They put all these sensors
on the baby and like video of them and so
you can see that, Like there's a thing that happens
where babies kind of wake up a little bit and
then sometimes they wake up more and then they start yelling,
(14:14):
and then sometimes they wake up a little bit and
then they go back to sleep, and that is more
likely to happen if they're swaddled. They're like less likely
to go from a little bit awake to a more
awake if they're swaddled.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
So there are a lot of good reasons to do it.
Speaker 4 (14:27):
And sometimes people will worry about their hips, but as
long as the swaddle is kind of loose around their hips,
which any of these standards swaddle blankets will be, then
that is not a concern.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
What does the research tell you about these new devices
like the SNeW that are supposed to be these like
automatic uh swaddlers.
Speaker 4 (14:45):
So the SNeW is an automated version of something where
we know the components of it work. So the SNeW
will like shush your baby and swaddle your baby and
just your baby and sway your baby, and we know
that many of those things do help the baby individually sleep.
This new sort of does it for you. We don't
(15:06):
have any good direct evidence that the SNeW itself is
better than not having the new. There's just like, isn't
a good randomized trial of that. But there are some
reasons to think that it would work. I would say
many people swear by it. You can rent them. We
should say you can rent them. They're very expensive, but
you're very expensive.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
I think they're like over fifteen hundred dollars, but you
can rent them for the period that you would need
them for your baby. So it might be something that
you want to look into. Yeah, yeah, okay, Emily.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
I have a lot of friends with babies, and they
all have very different philosophies on when they bring the
baby home what feels right to them in terms of
letting friends and family hold, touch, kiss, love on the baby.
I have friends who don't let me touch the baby.
I have friends who let me hold the baby right away.
(15:54):
I'm so curious what the research says about when it's
appropriate to introduce your baby to other people.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
The main guiding principle here is that in the first
six to eight weeks, if your baby gets sick, even
with something that seems like just a basic virus, if
they get a fever, because there's a higher risk of
a bacterial infection.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
They will need a spinal tap.
Speaker 4 (16:20):
If your four week old baby gets a fever, the
recommendation is you take into the hospital and they will
likely be given a spinal tap to test for meningitis.
It's a safe procedure, but it's like really freaky and
sort of scary for a lot of people. So I
think a lot of the caution in this very early
phase is about just basic germ avoidance that you don't
want to risk someone getting your kid sick, and kissing
(16:43):
the baby's face is like an easy way to transmit germs.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
So is there anything that parents can do to make
sure these early interactions are safer?
Speaker 4 (16:54):
So one is like generally having people kiss your baby's
face is probably not necessary.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Yeah, people hold the baby like they.
Speaker 4 (17:02):
Don't need to kiss their face, don't let people visit
if they're sick. It's as a hard place to set boundaries.
But I think if someone shows up at your house
and they're like, oh, it's just a little cold, you
just shut the door and tell them I'm sorry you
cannot come in, and like that's obviously really hard to do,
but I think the most important thing, and then just
having people wash their hands.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Also, there's no rush. There's always this like fervor to
meet the baby when they're literally like a goblin out
of the womb. It's boring, like you can come in
eight weeks and it'll still be a tiny little infant.
That you could come in twelve weeks and it'll still
be a little cute baby that you can hold in snuggle.
So but if it's your parents. I will tell you this.
(17:43):
If we have a third baby, I am probably going
to say no visitors for the first four to six
weeks because I entertained visitors with my second child, and
it was family, but I was in such a rough
emotional state that I was like trying in the kitchen
when the family is around, and I'm feeling this pressure
(18:03):
to entertain when all I needed to do was be
with the baby and take care of myself. And that's
my issue. It's not about excluding family members. It's about
making sure that the mom is taking care of herself.
Speaker 4 (18:14):
And I think this is a place where you're where
absolutely there's like this sort of data piece, but then
there's also a preference piece, which is like who do
you want? Do you want your mom? Do you want
your mother in law? Like do you want your sister,
do you want your brother? Do you want nobody? And
that depends a lot on your family relationships and what
you're like, and a bunch of things that kind of
have nothing to do with data.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
But also are really central. Yeah, totally. Next, we're going
to move into some developmental milestones. I can remember experiencing
some anxiety about making sure that my kids were hitting
their milestones when doctors say they should. We're talking about
things like rolling over, crawling, walking, even talking What does
(18:54):
the data tell us about kids who either hit these
milestone earlier or later? When should we actually have some
cause for concern. So there are.
Speaker 4 (19:06):
Ranges for any given milestone that are kind of the
ranges outside of wish you would say like we have
some concern, But I think for many parents these ranges
are bigger than they think. So for example, the sort
of expected age range for a kid, for a sort
of normally typically developing kid to walk on their own,
is between like eight and eighteen months.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
The average kid walks around a year.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
But if your fifteen month old is not walking, that's
actually still within the range of normal. And most of
these milestones are really really broad ranges.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
That's a big range. It's huge.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
I mean, the difference between eight month old and eighteen
month old is like the eighteen month old will crush
them like a bug. And so it's sort of useful
to think about that that range. If your kid is
outside that range, it's not that it is something to
panic about. It is worth talking to your doctor. And
that's kind of what your pediatrician. Pediatricians there for a
(20:03):
lot of things, but one of them is like, this
is something they're paying attention to. There are really good
ways to evaluate if it's something is going on that
you want to address.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
There are really good programs that are helpful.
Speaker 4 (20:14):
So I think we wouldn't be afraid of early intervention,
but we should also be aware that physical milestones have
a wide normalcy range, and like, just because your kid
walked at eight months, like, doesn't mean they're going to
the Olympics. I spent a lot of time telling people like,
your kid's not going to the Olympics, so just forget
thinking about it.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
But do people actually believe you? Because I don't know
that they do.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
I have told this to people who themselves went to
the Olympics. Those people are like, oh, yeah, I know,
my kid's not going to the Olympics. So I feel
like those people believe me, Like you know, you're like,
who are you?
Speaker 3 (20:46):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Yeah? Wait.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
This is funny because in that vein in terms of language,
is an early talking baby a marker of a genius,
of a developmental genius.
Speaker 4 (20:57):
Early talking is mildly coreally with sort of better reading
skills early but very mildly, very mildly, So they could
be geniuses, but the predictive power.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
Is very low.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Are there any measures that parents can take to improve
language outcomes for their kids?
Speaker 4 (21:17):
Yeah, talking to them and reading to them. Those are
kind of the key things. We have, like reasonably good evidence,
particularly on reading that like having exposure to books and
reading to your kids has some positive benefits later.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
How about when they're in the womb?
Speaker 4 (21:31):
No, sorry, is this this is any classic example of
like overinterpretation of studies that aren't relevant. So there's like
this one study of college students where they played Mozart
and a college students did better on a test. So
first of all, that actually turned out kind of to
not even really be right even in that context. The
(21:52):
kids liked music in general, but like playing the pop
music was just as good as Mozart, But it also
turned into this whole genre like you have to like
play Mozart for your baby in the womb because they're.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Going to be a gene I've heard that. Yeah, that's
not that's nothing, don't I mean.
Speaker 4 (22:07):
You could do that, but the data says, no, data,
this is not it's not.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Going to matter.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
Okay, we have to take another short break, but we'll
be right back with Emily Oster.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
And we're back with economist Emily Oster. All right, we're
going to bring this conversation home with a discussion of preschool.
Is there one preschool philosophy that you found in the
research is more effective than others?
Speaker 4 (22:45):
No, it's interesting to talk about why that question is
really hard to answer, which is what would you want
to do to know the answer? Well, you'd want to
like randomize kids to different kinds of preschools.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
That's pretty hard to do. You have to follow them
a long time.
Speaker 4 (23:02):
Chances are any effects would be very small, so you'd
need a huge sample of people. This is like a
really expensive, very difficult to run study that most parents
would not be interested in participating in because most of
the time, people do not want to randomly choose where
their kid goes to preschool. They want to think about it,
(23:22):
or think about what works for their family, or actually.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Play a role.
Speaker 4 (23:26):
And so that recognition is both showing us why it's
really hard to study and why it's really hard to
evaluate preschools by comparing the kids who go to different
preschools because like the kids are different, their parents chose
those preschools for different reasons, whether it's characteristics of the
family or what they think works for their kids. So
we just don't have much evidence on like should you
(23:47):
do Montessori, should you do play bass, should you do
this or that? Like some early childhood education exposure does
seem to prepare kids a bit better for kindergarten.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
And that's about it. We have laid out so many
impactful statistics, and we've dug into a lot of research,
but I also want to make sure that we're not
missing like the heart of this conversation, which for me
is like is speaking to the new moms and new
parents who are really in the throes of that anxiety.
And so you write this incredibly comprehensive book cribsheet, What
(24:20):
are the questions that parents brought to you after this
book came out? And or what are the common questions
that you hear from parents about this stage from birth
into PRESCHOOLI, if I had.
Speaker 4 (24:32):
To summarize what parents are wondering in this phase, it
is am I doing it wrong?
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (24:38):
And I think that the core, especially at the beginning,
in this sort of very overwhelming part of very new parenting,
it is so easy to feel like you are doing
it wrong all the time, Like every day is some
new opportunity to screw your kid up forever.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
You have no idea what you're doing.
Speaker 4 (24:56):
You're probably wrong, You're probably disagreeing with your partner because
neither of you know what to do. But it's the
most important thing either of you have ever done, and
so you're very sure even though you have no idea,
And so it's just this is a really overwhelming.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Time, thinks.
Speaker 4 (25:11):
Some of what I'm what I wish I could convey
to people and try to convey a little bit, is
that there are a lot of right ways to do this,
and that doesn't mean there isn't a right way for you,
and so you should try to figure out what works
for your family, but you have so much flexibility within
(25:33):
that to craft something that will be great for your kid,
and so like, just because you're doing it differently from
someone else does not mean you're doing it wrong. Yeah,
that's what I wish people would hear more.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
I think what you said about parents just wondering if
they're basically permanently messing up their kid, like that is
so real and universal and I can remember feeling that
too when you think about all the different choices that
new parents have to make, how many of these actually
do have the potential to influence our kids on like
(26:06):
a truly lasting, irreparable level. So in some ways the
years from zero to three are like the most important.
But when people talk about that, and we will say
that and we look at that in the data, really
what we mean is like, that's the time when it's
most important for your kid to have enough to eat,
a safe place to live, someone who loves them and
is paying attention to them, somebody's talking to them, not
(26:29):
being exposed to toxic stress in the household. If you're
hitting all of those things, you're doing great. And a
lot of the.
Speaker 4 (26:38):
Stuff we layer on top of that is really just
there's different preferences for different.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Ways to do things.
Speaker 3 (26:44):
Emily Oster, thanks for sharing all of this great information
with us today.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Thank you so much for joining us on the bright side. Emily,
thank you so much for having me. Emily Astra is
an award winning economist, professor at Brownie University, and New
York Times bestselling author. Emily is also the founder and
CEO of parent Data, a data driven guide to pregnancy,
parenting and beyond.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
That's it for today's show. Tomorrow, we're popping off with
the one the only pop culture anthropologist, Blake Lee Thornton.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
Join the conversation using hashtag the bright Side and connect
with us on social media at Hello Sunshine on Instagram
and at the bright Side Pod on TikTok oh, and
feel free to tag us at Simone Voice and at
Danielle Robe.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
Listen and follow The bright Side on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
See you tomorrow, folks. Keep looking on the bright side.
Hey fam, Hello Sunshine. Today on the bright Side, we're
bringing data driven research to parenting and tackling all of
your biggest parenting questions with Emily Auster. She's an economist,
bestselling author, and the founder and CEO of parent Data.
Her book Cribsheet is a textbook on everything you need
to know about newborns through the preschool years. It's Thursday,
(00:24):
November fourteenth.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
I'm Simone Boyce, I'm Danielle Robe and this is the
bright Side from Hello Sunshine, a daily show where we
come together to share women's stories, to laugh, learn and
brighten your day.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Danielle, the topic of today's episode is really taking me
back to those early days coming back from the hospital. Mmm,
tell me more. Well, all of it is new, none
of it is anything you've ever experienced before, so you're
kind of just like flying by the seat of your pants.
You're accepting help wherever you can get it, and I
think that is one of the hardest parts. It's like
(01:01):
knowing if you're making the right choice and knowing where
to take advice from, knowing who to take it from.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
You know. I actually just went to brisk this week
and it's so exciting to see my girlfriends become mothers.
They step into this whole new personhood. It's a completely
new role, and you know, they're so emotional about it too.
And I've heard them talk about those first few months,
even the first couple of years. There's so much joy
(01:27):
and a lot of stress because of the unknown. There's
no textbook, and everyone has an opinion on how to
do it, including you know, the grandparents and the aunts
and uncles. And so today we're really going to aim
to take the guesswork out of parenting and offer some
research back tips to help you feel confident about the
decisions that you're making, or will make, or have made.
(01:49):
What's interesting to me is I'm not even a parent yet,
and there's a lot of things I'm curious about. So
joining us today is Emily Auster. Emily is an award
winning economist, a professor of economics at Brown University, and
New York Times bestselling author. Emily's also the founder and
CEO of parent Data, a data driven guide to pregnancy, parenting,
and beyond.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Emily has such an impressive body of work, So there
are so many different places that we could take this conversation,
but today we decided to hone in on her book Cribsheet.
Let's get into it, Emily Oustar, this feels so good
to say, welcome back to the right side. Thanks for
having me back. Well, we're so thrilled to have you back.
And today we're taking it all the way back to
(02:31):
the beginning with your book Crib Sheet, which is a
data driven guide to better, more relaxed parenting from birth
all the way to preschool. So we want to start
at the first three days. There's some pretty big decisions
that you have to make while you're still at the hospital,
which can be difficult because you're in this really strange
state of mind after giving birth. You focus on two
(02:52):
key decisions that new parents have to make, cord clamping
and skin to skin contact. Why are these two choices
so p So.
Speaker 4 (03:01):
In the book, I wanted to focus on things where
there was a decision, but also where there's some data
to inform what you do. And these are two examples
of places where we have good data that suggests that
in these particular cases that delaying the cord clamping and
that having some early skinned skin can be beneficial.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
And so it feels important for people to know what
are the benefits of delayed cord clamping.
Speaker 4 (03:25):
So the idea behind delayed cord clamping is that you
take a little bit longer, you know, not like an hour,
but like ninety seconds before you clamp the abilical cord
or cut it, and that lets some of the blood
from the abilical cord go back into the baby, and
particularly for pre term babies, but even for full term babies,
this extra blood puts them at lower risk for anemia,
(03:47):
So that is the benefit there.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
I've heard a lot about the importance of skinned skin
contact with the baby. Does it differ for men and
women at all?
Speaker 1 (03:56):
So some of the.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
Better evidence we have about this is in promoting breastfeeding success,
and so that is a place where, of course the
person breastfeeding would benefit the most. But there's also again
even stronger for pre term maybe's reason to think that
temperature regulation and neurological regulation can be affected by this
(04:18):
skin to skin contact, and that would be true for
men and for women.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
So good from dad.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Also, what exactly is considered skin to skin contact?
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Is there a duration?
Speaker 2 (04:29):
No?
Speaker 4 (04:29):
I think it's just often people try to get the
baby on skin to skin as early as possible, so
they start rooting around for the boob and then doing
some of that when it works for everybody is kind
of recommended. But it's not like you must do this
for an hour or everything is terrible right, or you
must do it all the time.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Okay, Next, we're moving on to some questions about bathing
your baby after they're born for the first time. What
do the data tell us about the right time to
bathe the baby? Really have to do that?
Speaker 4 (05:01):
You know, there used to be this idea that you
would like wash the baby off and like before you
present it to the dad, you know, like you know, oh,
beautiful clean package. Oh wow, But we don't wash the
baby right away anymore. So there used to be that
would almost be the first thing, like the baby be
washed off and then given in this like wrapped up
clean package. But we now don't do that for some
(05:23):
of the skin to skin contact reasons. Generally there will
be some wiping off of the blood and other stuff
that gets on your baby. Sometimes babies will be bathed
in a tub bath at the hospital, and sometimes they
won't be. There's actually no particular reason that your baby
needs to have a bath for a while, and once
(05:44):
people are home, it's not like you have to bathe
them every day or every other day or even pretty much. Ever,
their hands will start to smell, so that's like a
good signal that maybe they should have a bath. They
get milk in their hands and then it like rots,
and then you can give.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Them a bath. Once you smell the smell.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
It's yeah, when they start of you and you like
open up their hands and it's kind of like coated
and sort of black, like rotted milk bathing, that's well, I.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Remember disgusting the two of you. This is not what
I imagined. I think the way that we did it
is we did the first bath whenever the umbilical cord
fell off yep, which is about two weeks.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
And yeah, that sounds about that's when we did it.
It was so terrible we didn't do it again for
weeks and weeks.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Yeah. I actually loved our first bath experience. But it's
a wild card.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
For we have this video. There's like three adults, our
cat is involved. Oh gosh, like a total disaster.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Okay, dumb question, but why is the first bath such
a big deal?
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Don't you just like do it in the sink? I
think it's sentimental. I think like you're you know, you're
in postpartum, you just gave birth. There's something sentimental about
cleansing the baby for the first time. I don't know,
maybe I'm adding unnecessary meaning to it, but it did
feel like a milestone.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
I feel like everything that is the first thing you
do with your first kid feels like yeah, and so
it's just like that's I don't remember the first time.
I could not tell you when we first bathed my son.
It could have been months after he was my second kid.
I just have no idea.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Oh, my first one, i'd actualely remember. Gets like, I
don't know, has he ever bathed? He's ten years old.
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Maybe one of my best friends just had a baby
and one of the things that she and her husband
have been talking about is fluctuating weight of the new baby.
What is the average amount of weight loss for an
infant that's normal?
Speaker 4 (07:29):
Generally, for a breastfed infant, losing up to ten percent
of their birth weight is considered normal. So for the
first period after birth, there isn't a lot of milk.
It can take two or three days for milk to
come in. There's some colosterum early on but that isn't
a lot of calories, and babies will lose some weight,
(07:51):
and this is often quite anxiety provoking for parents, but
it is like a totally normal part of how the
system is set up. If there is more extensive weight
loss than that, sometimes you will be encouraged to supplement
briefly until the milk comes in. But for yeah, so
something up to ten percent is considered totally typical. So
they will weigh your baby when they're born. They'll weigh
(08:12):
them in the hospital. When you go to the pediatrician
at four days, they'll weigh them again. So this isn't
something where I think parents have to be like getting
on and off the scale and monitoring it. Your doctor
will let you know if there's a problem with weight
and talk to you about what to.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Do about it. All right, moving on to feeding, which
can be a huge source of stress and shame for
new moms. I think it's been really heartening to see
that the discourse around this topic has really expanded in
the last few years. In your book, you reference a
study from twenty fifteen from the Journal Pediatrics, and this
study was all about weight loss in breast fed infants
(08:48):
in the hours after birth. What did the findings tell us?
Speaker 4 (08:51):
What we learn in this study is that there's variation
in weight loss across babies, but also across vaginal births
u is cesarean sections, with babies that are born by
cesarean section actually losing a bit more weight over time.
There's also we get a sense of just how common
a lot of weight losses and how quickly it happens.
(09:13):
So over the first four days, the average baby is
losing about eight percent of their body weight. So even
if you're not at ten percent, babies are losing a
substantial I mean eight percent of your body weight feels
like a substantial amount, and I think just really important
for parents to understand like that's typical and then it
should start coming back in the kind of that sort
(09:35):
of third day.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
And what do the data show about supplementing milk supply
with formula the best way to do that. The data
is very encouraging about that.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
So I think that many people worry that if you
supplement early on, it will ruin your breastfeeding relationship forever.
That just doesn't really show up in the data when
we look at what happens in terms of breastfeeding success.
For people who are supplemented with a bottle or try
to supplement with a cup or some other method that's
supposed to be more preserving, it just doesn't seem to
(10:06):
matter for long term success. And I think that's really
important for people to hear because there is so much
pressure to breastfeed and this combination of feeling like I
have to breastfeed, but my baby's losing too much weight.
But what if I supplement and then this ruins everything forever?
Speaker 1 (10:23):
We could just wade.
Speaker 4 (10:24):
Dial down the anxiety there, like some way loss is normal,
but also if you have to supplement, it is absolutely
not the end of the world by any stretch.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Okay, we need to take a quick break, but we'll
be right back with economist and New York Times bestselling
author Emily Oster. And we're back with economist Emily Oster.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Emily, I'm always so curious about your own personal experiences.
I read that when you brought your baby home, Penelope,
you broke down and you were crying in your basement.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
It was a nice face. It wasn't like it. It's not,
but yes it was. I was crying in the basement. Well,
what were you feeling in that moment.
Speaker 4 (11:11):
So there are two very vivid memories of this sort
of return home, one which was just very confused and
one which was very sad. So I remember we first
got home with my daughters, like bringing in the car
seat and being like, oh my god, what do I do?
Like I can't believe they let me take this thing home,
Like I don't know, I have no idea what I'm doing.
It's going to wake up, I don't know what happens.
(11:33):
And then there was this period a couple of weeks
in when I was so tired, and I think that
we under it's hard to conceptualize how tired you're going
to be at the beginning, and even sort of remembering
as a parent of an older kid, like it's hard
to put yourself back.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
In that point.
Speaker 4 (11:49):
But I was sitting in the basement just thinking I
will never feel rested again. That's it, Like I'm never
going to feel like I have rested again. And that's
a very depressing thought, particularly when you are very tired.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Yeah, what's the most encouraging piece of research that you've
come across about postpartum, Because when you're navigating it as
a new mom, it can feel like you're in this
wilderness where no one is going through it to the
degree with which you're going through it, and it can
be a very isolating experience.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
Encouraging wise, the thing I worry in some ways the
most about is when people's like true sort of postpartum
depression remains undiagnosed. I think some of the most encouraging
data is that if we did adequate screening of people,
a huge share of postpartum depression could be caught and
(12:44):
the outcomes once we find that someone has postpartum depression,
there are good treatment methods. You can take SSRIs while
you are breastfeeding. Absolutely, we can also think about other
kinds of non medication therapy, and so I think the
evidence is suggests that this screening, which is very simple,
very simple screening tools, that those can be effective. I'd
(13:04):
love to combine it with evidence showing that we can
make sure that that gets to everybody and that even
people who are not going to a six week postpartum
visit are getting the help that they need.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
There. Okay, feels like we need to do a whole
separate episode on postpartum, So we'll put a pin in
that one for now, But then we got to talk
about what happens in that transition when you bring your
baby home. Family members, friends are going to have a
lot of advice and tell you you should do this,
you shouldn't do that. First up, what does the research
(13:34):
say about swaddling? What should new parents keep in mind?
Speaker 4 (13:39):
Swaddling is good when you swaddle, which is you know,
involves wrapping your baby up in fabric, typically a custom
mased s wattle blanket, because no one can actually do
it with a regular blanket, although I.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
Think it is in principle possible.
Speaker 4 (13:53):
But we know from research where they bring babies into
the sleep lab, we know that babies wake up less
if there's swat and we can they can actually see
this is like quite cool. They put all these sensors
on the baby and like video of them and so
you can see that, Like there's a thing that happens
where babies kind of wake up a little bit and
then sometimes they wake up more and then they start yelling,
(14:14):
and then sometimes they wake up a little bit and
then they go back to sleep, and that is more
likely to happen if they're swaddled. They're like less likely
to go from a little bit awake to a more
awake if they're swaddled.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
So there are a lot of good reasons to do it.
Speaker 4 (14:27):
And sometimes people will worry about their hips, but as
long as the swaddle is kind of loose around their hips,
which any of these standards swaddle blankets will be, then
that is not a concern.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
What does the research tell you about these new devices
like the SNeW that are supposed to be these like
automatic uh swaddlers.
Speaker 4 (14:45):
So the SNeW is an automated version of something where
we know the components of it work. So the SNeW
will like shush your baby and swaddle your baby and
just your baby and sway your baby, and we know
that many of those things do help the baby individually sleep.
This new sort of does it for you. We don't
(15:06):
have any good direct evidence that the SNeW itself is
better than not having the new. There's just like, isn't
a good randomized trial of that. But there are some
reasons to think that it would work. I would say
many people swear by it. You can rent them. We
should say you can rent them. They're very expensive, but
you're very expensive.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
I think they're like over fifteen hundred dollars, but you
can rent them for the period that you would need
them for your baby. So it might be something that
you want to look into. Yeah, yeah, okay, Emily.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
I have a lot of friends with babies, and they
all have very different philosophies on when they bring the
baby home what feels right to them in terms of
letting friends and family hold, touch, kiss, love on the baby.
I have friends who don't let me touch the baby.
I have friends who let me hold the baby right away.
(15:54):
I'm so curious what the research says about when it's
appropriate to introduce your baby to other people.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
The main guiding principle here is that in the first
six to eight weeks, if your baby gets sick, even
with something that seems like just a basic virus, if
they get a fever, because there's a higher risk of
a bacterial infection.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
They will need a spinal tap.
Speaker 4 (16:20):
If your four week old baby gets a fever, the
recommendation is you take into the hospital and they will
likely be given a spinal tap to test for meningitis.
It's a safe procedure, but it's like really freaky and
sort of scary for a lot of people. So I
think a lot of the caution in this very early
phase is about just basic germ avoidance that you don't
want to risk someone getting your kid sick, and kissing
(16:43):
the baby's face is like an easy way to transmit germs.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
So is there anything that parents can do to make
sure these early interactions are safer?
Speaker 4 (16:54):
So one is like generally having people kiss your baby's
face is probably not necessary.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Yeah, people hold the baby like they.
Speaker 4 (17:02):
Don't need to kiss their face, don't let people visit
if they're sick. It's as a hard place to set boundaries.
But I think if someone shows up at your house
and they're like, oh, it's just a little cold, you
just shut the door and tell them I'm sorry you
cannot come in, and like that's obviously really hard to do,
but I think the most important thing, and then just
having people wash their hands.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Also, there's no rush. There's always this like fervor to
meet the baby when they're literally like a goblin out
of the womb. It's boring, like you can come in
eight weeks and it'll still be a tiny little infant.
That you could come in twelve weeks and it'll still
be a little cute baby that you can hold in snuggle.
So but if it's your parents. I will tell you this.
(17:43):
If we have a third baby, I am probably going
to say no visitors for the first four to six
weeks because I entertained visitors with my second child, and
it was family, but I was in such a rough
emotional state that I was like trying in the kitchen
when the family is around, and I'm feeling this pressure
(18:03):
to entertain when all I needed to do was be
with the baby and take care of myself. And that's
my issue. It's not about excluding family members. It's about
making sure that the mom is taking care of herself.
Speaker 4 (18:14):
And I think this is a place where you're where
absolutely there's like this sort of data piece, but then
there's also a preference piece, which is like who do
you want? Do you want your mom? Do you want
your mother in law? Like do you want your sister,
do you want your brother? Do you want nobody? And
that depends a lot on your family relationships and what
you're like, and a bunch of things that kind of
have nothing to do with data.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
But also are really central. Yeah, totally. Next, we're going
to move into some developmental milestones. I can remember experiencing
some anxiety about making sure that my kids were hitting
their milestones when doctors say they should. We're talking about
things like rolling over, crawling, walking, even talking What does
(18:54):
the data tell us about kids who either hit these
milestone earlier or later? When should we actually have some
cause for concern. So there are.
Speaker 4 (19:06):
Ranges for any given milestone that are kind of the
ranges outside of wish you would say like we have
some concern, But I think for many parents these ranges
are bigger than they think. So for example, the sort
of expected age range for a kid, for a sort
of normally typically developing kid to walk on their own,
is between like eight and eighteen months.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
The average kid walks around a year.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
But if your fifteen month old is not walking, that's
actually still within the range of normal. And most of
these milestones are really really broad ranges.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
That's a big range. It's huge.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
I mean, the difference between eight month old and eighteen
month old is like the eighteen month old will crush
them like a bug. And so it's sort of useful
to think about that that range. If your kid is
outside that range, it's not that it is something to
panic about. It is worth talking to your doctor. And
that's kind of what your pediatrician. Pediatricians there for a
(20:03):
lot of things, but one of them is like, this
is something they're paying attention to. There are really good
ways to evaluate if it's something is going on that
you want to address.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
There are really good programs that are helpful.
Speaker 4 (20:14):
So I think we wouldn't be afraid of early intervention,
but we should also be aware that physical milestones have
a wide normalcy range, and like, just because your kid
walked at eight months, like, doesn't mean they're going to
the Olympics. I spent a lot of time telling people like,
your kid's not going to the Olympics, so just forget
thinking about it.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
But do people actually believe you? Because I don't know
that they do.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
I have told this to people who themselves went to
the Olympics. Those people are like, oh, yeah, I know,
my kid's not going to the Olympics. So I feel
like those people believe me, Like you know, you're like,
who are you?
Speaker 3 (20:46):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Yeah? Wait.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
This is funny because in that vein in terms of language,
is an early talking baby a marker of a genius,
of a developmental genius.
Speaker 4 (20:57):
Early talking is mildly coreally with sort of better reading
skills early but very mildly, very mildly, So they could
be geniuses, but the predictive power.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
Is very low.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Are there any measures that parents can take to improve
language outcomes for their kids?
Speaker 4 (21:17):
Yeah, talking to them and reading to them. Those are
kind of the key things. We have, like reasonably good evidence,
particularly on reading that like having exposure to books and
reading to your kids has some positive benefits later.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
How about when they're in the womb?
Speaker 4 (21:31):
No, sorry, is this this is any classic example of
like overinterpretation of studies that aren't relevant. So there's like
this one study of college students where they played Mozart
and a college students did better on a test. So
first of all, that actually turned out kind of to
not even really be right even in that context. The
(21:52):
kids liked music in general, but like playing the pop
music was just as good as Mozart, But it also
turned into this whole genre like you have to like
play Mozart for your baby in the womb because they're.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Going to be a gene I've heard that. Yeah, that's
not that's nothing, don't I mean.
Speaker 4 (22:07):
You could do that, but the data says, no, data,
this is not it's not.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Going to matter.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
Okay, we have to take another short break, but we'll
be right back with Emily Oster.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
And we're back with economist Emily Oster. All right, we're
going to bring this conversation home with a discussion of preschool.
Is there one preschool philosophy that you found in the
research is more effective than others?
Speaker 4 (22:45):
No, it's interesting to talk about why that question is
really hard to answer, which is what would you want
to do to know the answer? Well, you'd want to
like randomize kids to different kinds of preschools.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
That's pretty hard to do. You have to follow them
a long time.
Speaker 4 (23:02):
Chances are any effects would be very small, so you'd
need a huge sample of people. This is like a
really expensive, very difficult to run study that most parents
would not be interested in participating in because most of
the time, people do not want to randomly choose where
their kid goes to preschool. They want to think about it,
(23:22):
or think about what works for their family, or actually.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Play a role.
Speaker 4 (23:26):
And so that recognition is both showing us why it's
really hard to study and why it's really hard to
evaluate preschools by comparing the kids who go to different
preschools because like the kids are different, their parents chose
those preschools for different reasons, whether it's characteristics of the
family or what they think works for their kids. So
we just don't have much evidence on like should you
(23:47):
do Montessori, should you do play bass, should you do
this or that? Like some early childhood education exposure does
seem to prepare kids a bit better for kindergarten.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
And that's about it. We have laid out so many
impactful statistics, and we've dug into a lot of research,
but I also want to make sure that we're not
missing like the heart of this conversation, which for me
is like is speaking to the new moms and new
parents who are really in the throes of that anxiety.
And so you write this incredibly comprehensive book cribsheet, What
(24:20):
are the questions that parents brought to you after this
book came out? And or what are the common questions
that you hear from parents about this stage from birth
into PRESCHOOLI, if I had.
Speaker 4 (24:32):
To summarize what parents are wondering in this phase, it
is am I doing it wrong?
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (24:38):
And I think that the core, especially at the beginning,
in this sort of very overwhelming part of very new parenting,
it is so easy to feel like you are doing
it wrong all the time, Like every day is some
new opportunity to screw your kid up forever.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
You have no idea what you're doing.
Speaker 4 (24:56):
You're probably wrong, You're probably disagreeing with your partner because
neither of you know what to do. But it's the
most important thing either of you have ever done, and
so you're very sure even though you have no idea,
And so it's just this is a really overwhelming.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Time, thinks.
Speaker 4 (25:11):
Some of what I'm what I wish I could convey
to people and try to convey a little bit, is
that there are a lot of right ways to do this,
and that doesn't mean there isn't a right way for you,
and so you should try to figure out what works
for your family, but you have so much flexibility within
(25:33):
that to craft something that will be great for your kid,
and so like, just because you're doing it differently from
someone else does not mean you're doing it wrong. Yeah,
that's what I wish people would hear more.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
I think what you said about parents just wondering if
they're basically permanently messing up their kid, like that is
so real and universal and I can remember feeling that
too when you think about all the different choices that
new parents have to make, how many of these actually
do have the potential to influence our kids on like
(26:06):
a truly lasting, irreparable level. So in some ways the
years from zero to three are like the most important.
But when people talk about that, and we will say
that and we look at that in the data, really
what we mean is like, that's the time when it's
most important for your kid to have enough to eat,
a safe place to live, someone who loves them and
is paying attention to them, somebody's talking to them, not
(26:29):
being exposed to toxic stress in the household. If you're
hitting all of those things, you're doing great. And a
lot of the.
Speaker 4 (26:38):
Stuff we layer on top of that is really just
there's different preferences for different.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Ways to do things.
Speaker 3 (26:44):
Emily Oster, thanks for sharing all of this great information
with us today.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Thank you so much for joining us on the bright side. Emily,
thank you so much for having me. Emily Astra is
an award winning economist, professor at Brownie University, and New
York Times bestselling author. Emily is also the founder and
CEO of parent Data, a data driven guide to pregnancy,
parenting and beyond.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
That's it for today's show. Tomorrow, we're popping off with
the one the only pop culture anthropologist, Blake Lee Thornton.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
Join the conversation using hashtag the bright Side and connect
with us on social media at Hello Sunshine on Instagram
and at the bright Side Pod on TikTok oh, and
feel free to tag us at Simone Voice and at
Danielle Robe.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
Listen and follow The bright Side on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
See you tomorrow, folks. Keep looking on the bright side.
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Simone Boyce
Danielle Robay
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