I totally get why people who were expecting Emily Oster's "expecting better" had their expectations disappointed by this book. It feels like Oster and Garbes are doing something similar by mixing their experiences with their research. But Oster wrote a book about the science behind what women are told during pregnancy and what is verifiable. Garbes wrote a book about the frustrations found in lack of knowledge and the really cool research rabbit holes she fell down in the process of learning.

(This book resonated with my autistic soul in terms of how much infodumping Garbes does.)

What this basically means is that Garbes geeks out about everything she finds cool - the placenta, doulas, and—yes—breastmilk. If you had a hard time breastfeeding, can't breastfeed, or chose not to and still have a lot of very real and understandable feelings about that, you may want to skip this chapter because it can be hard to read about how cool breastmilk is. And, to be clear, it is really cool! It's just a question of how much better it actually is than formula (in measurable terms—not that much—and the minimal gains are nothing compared to the gains babies get from having a happier mother if it's breastfeeding that is hurting her.) But Garbes doesn't get into the stats because, unlike Oster, she focuses solely on the science that interests her. In this case, it's how fascinating breastmilk is. She's quite clear that fed is best and I also understand where the disappointment comes from for people who wanted more about the actual data.

I love lives + science as a genre and I really liked this book for what it is - a story about what she didn't know, what she learned, and how it changed her. And I don't think it needs to be more than that.