Many of these are fairly confounded observational studies that are trying to detect a signal of risk That's fair - we want to know ~any~ possible problem because pregnancy is a pretty high-risk time anyway
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Thing is, a lot of the issues that I've risked aren't really modifiable, particularly for individual women (i.e. air pollution during pregnancy/autism in children association)
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So what ends up happening is that people are given yet another thing to be scared of in pregnancy because realistically they aren't going to be able to change their behaviors and reduce the risk (Avoid air! Stop taking your antidepressants!)
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Even worse, many of these risks are very small in absolute terms, but you see headlines blaring "9x increased risk" At best, this is woefully misleading
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Most of these studies are done to help doctors make complex decisions, but they are often reported in an oversimplified way that could easily be really problematic for people
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It's a problem that happens in every section of science reporting, but for some reason people are particularly alarmist when it comes to the slightest risk associated with pregnancy
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Is your thread also true for the
#flushot for pregnant women? -
Yes. The flu shot has fairly large benefits for pregnant women and is extremely low-risk, so the fearmongering about it is ridiculous
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