What to Believe When You’re Expecting: A New Look at Old Wives’ Tales in Pregnancy

When a woman is pregnant, she may hear no end of old wives’ tales, folklore, and advice on what will affect her baby or what will help her pregnancy to go well. Schaffir reviews the origins and the variety of these old tales and advice, repeated generation after generation, and helps women decide which bits they can believe.

Jonathan Schaffir, MD, is a practicing obstetrician with more than twenty-five years of experience caring for pregnant women and delivering babies. He is also a medical educator and teaches on the faculty of the Ohio State University College of Medicine. He is the former president of the North American Society for Psychosocial Obstetrics and Gynecology, an interdisciplinary society that brings together various professionals who have interests in sociocultural and psychological aspects of obstetrics and women’s health. He has extensive experience researching and writing in the field of obstetrical folklore and has been quoted in outlets such as Parents, American Baby, Self, and Child magazine. He has also appeared on local news programs to comment on these studies when they have been published.