A friend of mine works as a pedeatrician in the UK. She mentioned the other day that her ICU was really quite over the pandemic as there were less pre-term births. She thought this was because everyone was staying at home and resting more i.e. rest is good for pregnancy and rushing around is not. Would love to see a deep dive into the data on this – was it true in other countries and how does it support / conflict with existing evidence on rest in pregnancy? Thanks!

I would love to see an analysis of the data on autoimmune diseases and pregnancy. I had a flare-up of my Crohn’s disease toward the end of my pregnancy that was ultimately treated after delivery (just because of how late we caught it-it was hard to decipher if I felt sick just becaise I was pregnant…). I was not in a flare-up while pregnant, and hadn’t had one for 15 years, for context, so it seems pregnancy caused it. My doctor told me that about 1/3 of women get flare-ups during pregnancy, 1/3 stay the same, and 1/3 get better, but I think that’s just based on his experience.

I’m mostly curious what the chances are that I get a flare-up if I get pregnant again, and if I’ll need different/more intense treatment (currently not on immune suppressing drugs for my disease) if this happens again. My sister had flare-ups with both of her pregnancies and ultimately needed new treatment. I’m particularly interested in Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis, but I bet women with other autoimmune disorders would love to better understand this!

Is there any evidence to suggest that giving my toddler too much screen time will hurt their eyes? I see a lot about the trade off between enriching activities and screen time, but not a lot about eye health. Thank you!

I believe that the genetic testing company Natera is engaging in sloppy (at best) or deceptive (worst) practices, based on informal conversations with a few groups of friends. An outsized number of people have had the experience of unfair billing practices, etc. with Natera. If Parent Data polled the greater community, I wonder if you might shed some light on bad business practices that, based on the nature of the business, are specifically affecting recently postpartum parents at a vulnerable time.

I would love more information on the background and meaning of a toddler expressing a preference for one parent over another repeatedly, especially if the less preferred parent is the mom because most articles online assume the mom is the favorite! Is there anything to try to balance that out or if it’s just a patience / waiting game (and how should the mom not take it personally!!)? Thank you!

I also love Emily’s chapter on breastfeeding, but was curious if we could get more clarity on what is meant by “early infancy” (e.g., how many months) and also what the typical month threshold is for “longer durations” of breastfeeding for benefits like the reduced cancer risk. Thanks!

I’m currently making my way through Expecting Better (amazingly helpful!) and one of the big open topics I’m curious about that isn’t covered is vape exposure (like cigarette smoking exposure but the “modern” version). Particularly around the impact on secondhand vape exposure while pregnant. Obviously vapes can contain any spectrum of substances at different dosages (eg nicotine levels and chemicals from the flavors). Seems like the data is a hard no on exposure to smoking, but is that because something is being burned or is it because of the nicotine exposure? Something else that we might correlate with vaping/being exposed to secondhand vape as well?

I saw a news article a long time ago saying there was a study linking sun exposure before the age of 5 and skin cancer later in life. Is there any legit data on this?

I would love to hear what advice you have for rare complications/diseases with pregnancy and how to handle them in general.

My wife had a case of atypical HUS – which seems to afflict roughly 2 in a million people – which makes finding good information on it quite hard…

Emily, I would love to hear your thoughts on if there is sufficient data to indicate the risks of GBS disease in newborns is mitigated in water birth. A few of the midwives I have seen at my birth center have referenced an article in Midwifery Today (Cohain, JS. Waterbirth and GBS) that claims that birthing into water results in a 300% decrease in incidence of Early Onset GBS disease in newborns compared to antibiotic prophylaxis. This is an incredibly bold claim that seems too good to be true, and I remain skeptical.

The new website looks great! Just a comment that with the design transition, some images are missing from past posts. I just went to reference the excellent flow charts about CMV and found that they are gone, replaced by little icons showing the image is missing. That post is one of the only good sources of information about CMV and pregnancy on the whole internet, so it would be AWESOME to have those flow charts back if you can get to it. Thanks!

Is there a dedicated place (maybe this page?) to let you know when an article hasn’t migrated to the new site properly? The charts on the CMV risk article were not loading for me yesterday. Thanks, really appreciate the new site!

I would love to hear more about the data around family dinners. I’m convinced it’s great for kids and families but when should it start? Our usual routine is to eat dinner after our LO (6 month) goes to bed so I’m wondering if it’s worth disrupting the routine to include him in dinner when we start solids soon. Thanks!