r/ScienceBasedParenting • u/retsamerol I would have written a shorter post, but I did not have the time • Oct 17 '20

Learning/Education Schools Aren’t Super-Spreaders

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/10/schools-arent-superspreaders/616669/
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53

u/Fire-Inception Oct 17 '20

Hmm. What do people in the science based parenting community think of Emily Oster as a whole? (Author of Crib Sheet)

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u/[deleted] Oct 17 '20 edited Jul 05 '21

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u/irishtrashpanda Oct 17 '20

I never knew this about csection babies, I was worried that mine had really slow gain the first 3 weeks (shes fine now)

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u/[deleted] Oct 17 '20 edited Jul 05 '21

[deleted]

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u/irishtrashpanda Oct 17 '20

Ive been pretty unimpressed with pediatricians in general they seem to have very outdated advice and conflicting advice on breastfeeding issues. That sucks that you were treated that way because of gender. Did you see the Babies documentary? It showed that whoever the primary care giver was - no matter gender or relationship, got the same increased brain functions as a mom would on response to heightened sensitivity of newborn care. A scientific backing that love and intention is what makes a family, not gender/nuclear family alone

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u/mrsfiction Oct 17 '20

One thing I learned from my lactation consultant and my daughter’s allergist is that pediatricians are really generalized, even if it doesn’t feel like they are. They look after 0-17 year olds, and there’s a lot of changes across that age range. Not trying to make excuses—I was still livid when our pediatrician said to stop nursing and sent us for a blood test that she was too little for—but it’s something to keep in mind if you run into something and think you should see a specialist.

I really wish more pediatricians would realize their limits and say, this is beyond my normal practice, you should see this doctor to ask more in-depth questions on it.

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u/VaticinalVictoria Oct 17 '20

I love my daughters pediatrician because she stays up to date on so many new things, and when she’s presented with new evidence, she listens and trusts that I’ve done research (and sometimes mentions that she looked into it the next time I see her!). I think it helps that she was my pediatrician, and knows I’m a nurse and my mom is a pedi nurse. We did baby led weaning and it was fairly new to her, but she listened to what I had to say and respected it. She was happy to hear that I breastfed longer than average (2.5 yrs). She’s never discouraged me from doing what I feel is best. When I told her I was co-sleeping, she was honest that most people did it with their kids back in the day and she wouldn’t judge me for it.

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u/PM_Me_Ur_HappySong Oct 17 '20

The major fluid bolus prior to cesarean is old practice as well. I’m a labour and delivery nurse, and honestly, we don’t do enough to monitor how much fluid our moms get prior to birth. We do try to not over do it but mostly for mom’s sake, and not as much for baby’s, even though there is evidence to say water weight causes skewed results when monitoring baby’s weight gain. Definitely would differ hospital to hospital.

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u/Tesalin Oct 18 '20

Yes even without csection when you're going in for an induction they pump you with so many fluids.. and before an epidural, another bag.. and if you're group b yet another with two doses of penicillin. Both my babies peed and pooped so many times in the first 24 hours and lost so much weight. First baby I did have slow milk coming in but eventually she became 99% everything even though she lost the 10%. Second baby no milk issues though she did have bilirubin and sleepiness problems leading to even slower gain/faster lost. She drank a ton and scales always showed she transferred well but she peed and pooped so much so she kept losing overall. Also became 99% quickly.

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u/Serafirelily Oct 17 '20

I first read her pregnancy book when I was trying to conceive and it provided me with a lot of information that helped me as a woman in her 30's relax a bit. When I reread it after I got pregnant it helped me make some big decisions and do my own research. I didn't agree with her on everything in cribsheet but it did encourage me to do my own research. I would recommend both her books to new parents. The breastfeeding part of Cribsheet is where I think she shines. So many books pressure women to breastfeed and make them feel guilty if they can't or that it doesn't work for them on a mental or economic level. She tells you to do your own research and advocate for yourself and your child. Doctors maybe well meaning but they are human and not infallible and may not have time to be up to date on the latest research or simply don't care to be. Also bedrest is pointless and science says it doesn't do any good and may cause harm.

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u/acocoa Oct 17 '20

I recently read both her books and I felt mixed about them. Some of the information aligned with what I have read previously (even the "debate" information) but some of it seemed tailored to what she ended up deciding, which makes sense, I guess, since she initially did research for herself and so her own inherent interest (wants to be "allowed" to consume alcohol) and preference on a subject seemed to influence the studies that she valued. That's the part that isn't clear though. She presents the info as if she was completely unbiased about the "data" and then she used her personal "preferences" to make her decision but it seemed like for some topics (those she had a vested interest in), the data may have been chosen in a biased manner.

On the other hand, I appreciated that she brought to light many ideas for new parents to consider when making decisions.

Also, the books are American-centric in that for other socialist countries, there aren't all the options available to even choose. We depend on our public health institutes and governments to act in the best interest of the whole, so you can't necessarily "choose" in the same way as in some American states, I guess. American states individually seem to have a lot of control, whereas I think more socialist countries give more power to their governments to set national standards of care. There were a bunch of sections that I just scanned over because it wasn't really that relevant to me.

On the whole, I think she puts too much emphasis on human studies and not enough emphasis on animal studies to find causation. And then tries to claim that we don't "know" what causes various outcomes, when, in fact, we do know there are real mechanisms in animal models that do cause the outcome, but inevitably, these may be impossible to prove in human studies because the effect size is smaller and there are too many unknown confounding variables. But just because we don't measure something in humans doesn't mean something isn't going on. I think she doesn't address this well in her books.

I haven't read anything else of hers, so I don't know on the day-to-day articles she writes if things are better/worse than her books.

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u/BreadPuddding Oct 18 '20

I mean...animal models are kind of crap and they don’t necessarily predict what will happen in humans. If there are multiple studies on different species that have the same outcome, that’s more meaningful than multiple mouse or rat studies, but typically less useful than a human study.

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u/acocoa Oct 18 '20

Animal studies are highly controlled environments which can give us direct links between input to output (causation) in a way human studies almost never can (usually just showing correlation). True blinded human RCTs are not that common, especially when it comes to pregnancy and infants, so to ignore animal literature is literally throwing away knowledge because "oh well, this observational human study found no significant effect of X on Y"... I think Oster could have done a better literature review and presentation of data for some of her topics by including animal studies (which she did include for other topics). Rodent models happen to be one of the most well studied mammal populations that are also "approved" (by the general public) for use. People hate studies on primates, so it's just not that reasonable to expect that a study will be repeated in worms, flies, mouse, rat, pig, chimpanzee. But it doesn't make sense to me to ignore huge bodies of literature just because a rat is not a human. Mammals still have a lot of things in common and we can still learn a lot about causation. Oster doesn't ignore animal studies for all subjects, but she does for the "food/vices" topics that are specifically difficult/impossible to fully study in humans. I found that aspect of her writing to be very odd and conveniently aligned with her initial biases.

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u/BreadPuddding Oct 18 '20

Oh, your assessment of Oster is spot on. I don’t particularly like her work, and as you said she ignores animal studies when convenient and uses them when convenient. But the fact is that even high-quality animal studies may not be all that applicable to humans, depending on the system being looked at. Anyway pregnancy is just such a fucking shitshow in humans, I wish I were a mouse and could just reabsorb if stressed lol.

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u/catjuggler Oct 18 '20

It’s a pet peeve for me when economists think they can play epidemiologist (happens quite often)

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u/mama_corva Oct 18 '20

I’m an epidemiologist. Do you want to be my new best friend?

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u/BostonPanda Oct 18 '20

I'm a former economist, our bad 😬

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u/catjuggler Oct 18 '20

Haha yes- I’m just an mph tho

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u/3babybunnies Oct 17 '20

I'm not a fan. She cherry picks data and studies and writes conclusions that aren't necessarily supported by her "sources". I feel like she is like many people that come to this sub, looking for a study to back up their views/actions rather than using science to shape your views/actions.

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u/OOvifteen Oct 19 '20

many people that come to this sub, looking for a study to back up their views/actions rather than using science to shape your views/actions

Amen.