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https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/obscure-pregnancy-interventions-much

This is intended as a sequel to my old Biodeterminist\u2019s Guide To Parenting. It\u2019s less ambitious, in that it focuses only on pregnancy; but also more ambitious, in that it tries to be right. I wrote Biodeterminist\u2019s Guide in 2012, before the replication crisis was well understood, and I had too low a bar for including random crazy hypotheses.

On the other hand, everyone else has too high a bar for including random crazy hypotheses! If you look at standard pregnancy advice, it\u2019s all stuff like \u201ctake prenatal vitamins\u201d and \u201cavoid alcohol\u201d and \u201cdon\u2019t strike your abdomen repeatedly with blunt objects\u201d. It\u2019s fine, but it\u2019s the equivalent of college counselors who say \u201cget good grades and try hard on the SAT.\u201d Meanwhile, there are tiger mothers who are making their kids play oboe 10 hours/day because they heard the Harvard music department has clout with Admissions and is short on oboists. What\u2019s the pregnancy-advice version of that?

That\u2019s what we\u2019re doing here. Do not take this guide as a list of things that you have to do, or (God forbid) that you should feel guilty for not doing. Take it as a list of the most extreme things you could do if you were neurotic and had no sense of proportion.

Here are my headline findings: