When Jena Pincott, author of Do Chocolate Lovers Have Sweeter Babies?, contacted me to see if I’d be interested in reviewing her book, I’ll admit that the title alone had me intrigued. I am, after all, a dyed-in-the-cacao chocolate lover. Could my near-daily chocolate consumption lead to that sweet, docile baby I’ve always dreamed of? (More on that in a bit…)
But then I spied the book’s subtitle: “The Surprising Science of Pregnancy.” Then, I became really interested in reading her book.
And, as it turns out, I’m really glad that I did.
In a nutshell, Do Chocolate Lovers… is a collection of short pieces offering research-based answers to some of the most quirky and unusual questions about pregnancy.
Questions like, “Do bossy broads have more sons?” (Turns out that women with higher testosterone levels often do!) “Do mommies have better brains?” (In the first few postpartum months, we do often grow new grey matter in areas of the brain related to planning and execution, motivation and reward, perception and sensory integration, and maternal hormones!) And, of course, “Do chocolate lovers have sweeter babies?” (Daily chocolate consumers do indeed tend to have babies who appear to be less stressed, less fearful, and less frustrated! YOU’RE WELCOME, MY SWEET BABY!)
But more than simply answering these questions, Pincott describes the research behind those answers in a way that’s both accessible and fun(ny). What’s more, she explains the science of pregnancy carefully and even gently. For as she reiterates, cause is not the same as correlation, and tendency does not imply destiny. In other words, for the most part, we’re not “ruining” our babies if we miss out on one or more of the things that the research tells us we should be doing.
And more than that, pregnancy (and parenting, for that matter) isn’t and shouldn’t be about “doing it perfectly”–it’s about doing what we can, with the information and abilities we have in the moment.
For instance: even though, as Pincott discusses, fish-based Omega-3 fatty acid consumption during pregnancy is linked to a whole host of brain and intelligence benefits in babies and older children, my “failure” eat “enough” fish during this pregnancy doesn’t entail that I’ll have an intellectually deficient child. These fatty acids are just one piece of the puzzle. And there’s plenty else that I can do to help make the most of the brain with which this little baby is born. (You can see more about Pincott’s fascinating research on omega-3′s in my interview with her below.)
So, dear readers, do I recommend this book to you? Absolutely. Pregnant women, parents, science-lovers, and collectors-of-strange-knowledge galore should enjoy it immensely.
Don’t mistake it for a comprehensive pregnancy and birth guide, because that’s not what it is. But it is 100% fascinating, smart, and fun.
Now onto my interview with Jena Pincott. Many thanks to her for sharing the book with me and taking the time to answer these questions!
1. What research surprised you the most when preparing for and writing this book? On a similar note, what part of your experience of pregnancy and/or childbirth surprised you the most as it related to preparing for and writing this book?
A lot of fascinating research on how pregnancy affects brain and behavior came out when I was writing the book. In a nutshell, many of us become chummier, calmer, more sensorial and even sentimental. Memory may suffer, attention drifts.
I was surprised by how much pregnancy affected my brain— and, by extension, the writing process. I’ve always relied on flow — that hypnotic, hyper-efficient state in which I delve into a pile of studies and notes, write, and emerge an hour or five later with something substantial. I had a completely different type of flow this time —completely unlike my usual neurotic deadline-driven process. In first trimester, I found myself wading neck-deep for weeks in the minutiae of a fairly rare medical condition (a subchorionic hematoma that resolved itself) that wouldn’t warrant more than a mention in the book. In third trimester I’d daydream a lot, listening to music and allowing thoughts to flow —whether the baby would kick in the allegro movement as she did the previous day, what music I should bring to the delivery room, and so on. So much of what I wrote ended up on the cutting room floor; readers want to read about the interesting big-picture stuff, not about every kick and bowel movement.
I wondered about my behavior: the calmness about deadlines, the weird malapropisms and tip-of-the-tongue word retrieval frustrations, the hyper-vigilance about medical stuff, the haze toward the end of third-trimester. Was I acting this way only because the studies indicate that pregnant women should? It’s hard to be your own guinea pig.
2. As a philosopher, I’ve often been intrigued by the epistemic value of folk knowledge or folk wisdom: things like old wives’ tales, allegories, metaphorical “truths,” stories that our ancestors used to explain the human experience, and so on. Of course, many such “old wives’ tales” pertaining to pregnancy and birth have been debunked! Nonetheless, were there ever moments in your research for the book where you thought to yourself, “Hmm…science may support [insert piece of folk knowledge or wisdom] after all!”?
I was really gratified to find evidence that science supports a mother’s intuition. Expectant moms who have a strong feeling about the gender of their child — or have a dream in which their child’s gender is revealed — are accurate significantly more often than by chance. I love this. Of course I swore that I was going to have a boy—and I was wrong.
Incidentally, a lot of strangers on the street told me I was carrying a boy because my bump was high and as round as a basketball. That particular folk wisdom — the predictive power of belly shape— doesn’t pan out in scientific studies. But a lot of people also base their predictions on a woman’s overall shape, and it turns out that one’s curves above the belt are somewhat revealing. A new study found that women who are carrying girls grow larger breasts than women who are expecting boys. By second trimester, I had definitely grown a cup size.
3. One of the things that I especially loved about Do Chocolate Lovers… is that you weave your personal experience of being a pregnant woman into your science writing about pregnancy–and you do so without sacrificing the clarity and strength of your exposition of the research! This is a remarkable feat. Were there ever moments, however, when the research itself affected the way you experienced your pregnancy? Did it propel you, for instance, to alter any of your behaviors or habits? To pat yourself on the back for “doing the right thing?” Did it ever make you feel neurotic about all that you “should” be doing in order to ensure the health not only of your baby but of future generations (i.e. your “baby’s babies”)?
Thank you for asking this because it gives me an opportunity to make a point! I write about epigenetics— the ways in which the behavior of genes (yours and the fetus’s and possibly future generations too) is affected by the environment, which includes diet, disease, stress, smoking, sunshine, and many other factors. This knowledge was pleasingly motivating when it came to remembering to take care of myself during pregnancy. (Don’t starve but don’t overindulge either, embrace stress but eschew excess stress, exercise but don’t overextend, and so on.)
The catch is that it’s easy to get neurotic and start worrying that anything that violates the rules — that extra chocolate bar, the fight with your partner, a pizza sauce made out of canned tomatoes — is going to permanently hurt your baby and future generations too. (At one point I panicked about being stressed.)
But here’s the truth: the system is resilient. It rebounds after normal, moderate adversity. I made sure to include examples of this in the book — for instance, how a healthy diet high in leafy greens and other nutrients may reverse or offset the adverse epigenetic effects of prenatal BPA exposure and a recent study that found that kids who have strong, healthy relationships with their mothers, even if those mothers were highly stressed during pregnancy, don’t show the usual adverse cognitive and behavioral effects of excess prenatal stress.
Whenever I found myself getting neurotic about some misdeed, I’d remind myself about balance and resilience.
4. In a similar vein, one of the moments that I most adored in the book is the way you address missing out on some of the “golden hour” after your daughter’s birth. (For those who don’t know, this “golden hour” is the hour immediately following birth when, ideally [and as research demonstrates], babies should spend their time skin-to-skin with their mothers: taking in their mother’s scent, helping to stimulate her milk production, and setting off a number of other beneficial hormonal and bio-chemical responses in one another.) It seems as if your hospital’s policies at the time resulted in an initial and prolonged separation between you and your baby after her birth. You response to this is mixed with both regret and hope. For you wish that you could have changed that hour. But you also write:
…Now when my baby is fussy, I unsnap and pull up her onesie, lay her on my naked chest, skin to skin, and feel her anxiety dissolve.
Our first golden hour together has passed, and I can’t change that. Fortunately, there will be many more.
This is so beautiful, but also so wise. And I’ve wondered if, in sharing this part of your experience, you intended to pass on any particular wisdom to other mothers who might regret certain circumstances or choices relating to their own pregnancy or parenting?
I once worked in TV, and producers have a saying when a taping doesn’t go perfectly: we’ll fix it in the mix. That is, we can compensate for errors in a performance — and even improve it — by making tweaks later on. It’s hard to go through nine-plus months of pregnancy with a perfect performance. But I really think that much can be fixed in the mix.
I will always regret not holding my baby enough in those first hours after birth. Throughout my pregnancy I was so caught up in whatever was going on in the moment that I didn’t focus on the overwhelming research on the benefits of skin-to-skin contact right after birth. I wrote that section several weeks after the baby was born. But she did get a lot of snuggling in those first weeks anyway. My milk came in four days after she was born and I’ve since been nursing for well over a year. I like to think I’ve compensated.
My advice to parents is to focus on what you’re doing for your child now, not what you could’ve done. When one window of opportunity slams shut, another opens.
5. You end the book with a “summary of practical tips” pertaining to pregnancy, birth, and infant-parenting. Since you published the book, have you come across any other well-researched practical tips that you would like to add?
I’m intrigued by the ongoing research on omega-3s and pregnancy. In the book I wrote about the benefits of prenatal fish consumption. I noted that among the studies that found positive effects of omega-3s on children’s cognition, most involved eating fish, not taking fish oil pills. I’ve seen more evidence of this lately, including a few disturbing studies that found that the consumption of prenatal fish oil pills were linked with lower scores on some cognitive tests. I posted an article about it in the Huffington Post.
There are many explanations for this. One is that fish is more than the sum of its parts and/or that we metabolize the omega-3s better in a meal than in a pill. Another explanation is that women who take fish oil pills in a pregnancy study don’t continue to take them after the baby is born, unlike women who eat fish during pregnancy and afterward. Babies do best when there is consistency between prenatal and postnatal conditions. If a woman takes fish oil pills during pregnancy then stops taking them after the birth, there is a “environmental mismatch” between pre- and postnatal life. The fetus is “programmed” in the womb to have certain nutritional expectations and is thrown off when conditions change. When prenatal predictions turn out to be wrong (e.g. during a food shortage or a period of maternal anxiety that reverses after the birth) babies seem to fare worse than if the conditions had remained constant.
These studies are not at all conclusive and further research is warranted. But my advice is to eat (low-mercury) fish, during and after pregnancy, rather than take fish oil supplements. If you take fish oil pills, make sure that your baby gets increased omega-3s after birth too.
Many thanks to Jena Pincott, author of Do Chocolate Lovers Have Sweeter Babies?: The Surprising Science of Pregnancy. Follow pregnancy & parenting science on: Facebook, Twitter @jenapincott or http://jenapincott.com/.
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the author for purposes of the review. I did not receive any additional compensation.
BUT, I can tell you that at month five of the postpartum period, I am in a state of bliss. I love my baby so much that my chest feels like it might explode. When I hold the two boys in my lap, I can honestly say my heart is full. When I think about my son’s birth, which I do REGULARLY, I would love to do it all again. Particularly those first few days. I remember it hurt, but I remember the wonder and joy more. I love when my squirmy baby is still on my chest and I close my eyes and try to breathe him in. There are so many feelings after having a baby and between both boys, I’m quite sure I have felt them all.
