Beyond Parenting Advice: How Science Should Guide Your Decisions on Pregnancy and Child-Rearing

This book provides pregnant women and new parents with evidence-based information on pregnancy and parenting. Most parenting books advise pregnant women or new parents what to do and, at best, defend that advice by citing recommendations from highly selected “experts” or equally selective “studies.” Some parents prefer an advice book, but an increasing number do not trust the advice they receive unless they are convinced of its scientific backing.

Dr. Kramer does not tell pregnant women or new parents what they should or should not do. Instead, he focuses on controversial decision choices for which recommendations and practices differ substantially. He systematically reviews and synthesizes the available scientific evidence bearing on those choices, summarizes the strengths and weaknesses of that evidence, and translates the summaries in a way that encourages parents to make their own informed decisions. He summarizes the risks and benefits of different decision options, as well as the degree of certainty around them. The risks and benefits then need to be valued by the individual parent and balanced against the effort and financial costs incurred by the decision.

Beyond Parenting Advice does not cover every conceivable topic relevant to pregnancy, infancy, and childhood. Instead, it focuses on key controversial areas with abundant but conflicting advice and information. The book’s contents are organized into four sections: an initial section comprising two introductory chapters and one section each devoted to topics concerning pregnancy, infancy/toddlerhood, and childhood/adolescence. Each topic is limited to one chapter. The two introductory chapters are short but dense. They are essential, however, to understand the scientific concepts and vocabulary used in the evidence review of each topic area. After reading the two initial chapters, the rest of the book can actually be used like an encyclopedia. In other words, the reader should be able to read and understand any later chapter in the book, or even a short section from any chapter. Despite the chronological order of pregnancy and the aging child, the topic chapters in sections 2-4 could have been written, and can be read, in any order.  An initial Reference Tools section provides a glossary and reproduces a diagram and two tables that define unfamiliar words and concepts.

Armed with the information provided in this book, different parents will make different decisions. But those decisions will be informed decisions—not blind obedience to a book, blog, health provider, friend, family, or public health authority. Moreover, the skills that parents acquire in reading this book will help them throughout their lives in critically evaluating new information relevant to health, science, and technology.  

Dr Michael Kramer completed most of his early schooling in Miami, Florida.  He left Miami to pursue his undergraduate studies at the University of Chicago, then moved to Yale University, where he completed medical school, a residency in pediatrics, and a research fellowship in clinical epidemiology.  Following his education and professional training, he moved north to accept a faculty position at the McGill University Faculty of Medicine in Montreal, Canada, where he spent his entire academic career of 42 years before his recent retirement as Professor Emeritus.  He practiced clinical pediatrics for nearly 25 years, but most of his career has been devoted to research and teaching.

Dr Kramer has published over 500 scientific articles and has won numerous national and international awards for his research.  He has served as a member of expert committees of the World Health Organization (WHO), the U.S. Institute of Medicine, and the Council of Canadian Academies.  He helped establish the Canadian Perinatal Surveillance System in 1995 and from 2003 to 2011 was Scientific Director of the Institute of Human Development, Child and Youth Health at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.  In 2011, he was elected to Fellowship in the Royal Society of Canada.  Dr Kramer’s systematic review of the scientific evidence on the optimal duration of exclusive breastfeeding led directly to new infant feeding recommendations by WHO in 2001.  His research on preterm birth helped draw attention to the role of labor induction and elective cesarean delivery as drivers of the rise in preterm birth from the 1980s to the early 2000s.  That research contributed to obstetric guidelines to restrict provider-initiated early delivery, which have helped reverse that trend.  Dr. Kramer was recently cited as among the most impactful 0.01% of the world’s researchers across all scientific fields.

Dr Kramer is married and has three children and five grandchildren.  He plays violin and is an avid chamber musician.  He also enjoys a variety of outdoor activities, including cycling, hiking, tennis, and skiing.