Emily Oster and evidence-based parenting

Available for over a year

Helen Lewis meets the writers and thinkers who are breaking new ground. From politics to economics, from tech to the study of how we live, things are changing fast. Old certainties have not been under such challenge for decades. So each week, we give the whole programme over to a single in-depth, close-up interview with someone whose big idea is bidding to change our world. Helen’s challenge is to make sense of their new idea, to find out more about the person behind it – and to test what it has to offer us against the failures of the past. This week, Helen talks to American economist Emily Oster, author of Expecting Better and Cribsheet, about how to apply rational, evidence-based decision making to the sleep-deprived fog of myth and misinformation that surrounds parenting. Questions about what to eat in pregnancy, whether to have an epidural during childbirth, and whether to sleep-train your baby are fraught with controversy and attract a great deal of anxiety and guilt. Yet the actual data on the pros and cons is surprisingly hard to come by. Emily Oster sought to fill that information gap and she tells Helen Lewis why this can have a life-changing impact on babies – and their exhausted parents. Producer: Eliane Glaser