‘Why has my uterus fallen into my vagina?’: Emily Oster’s new book demystifies common pregnancy complications

The Unexpected, the latest book by the economics professor, examines the uncomfortable and embarrassing parts of pregnancy that no one talks about

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.

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