Must women behave like nuns during pregnancy?

Yea, and.? I said. Well, she said, My OB told me not to eat any soft cheeses when I was pregnant. Worried about harming my unborn baby, and petrified of appearing reckless while pregnant, I stopped moving the hazardous material towards my mouth and, shoulders slumped, shuffled off to find a trash can. I never did find out why, until my second pregnancy, I couldnt eat Brie cheese. Emily Oster, an economist for The Wall Street Journal wasnt so blindly obedient during her pregnancy. Rather than taking the numerous commandments of pregnancythou shalt not drink alcohol, thou shalt not eat sliced turkey, thou shalt not enjoy caffeinated coffee or hot baths guilt free, thou shalt not play with kitty litter, thou shalt not gain too much weightat face value, she did what any self-respecting economist would and analyzed data and statistics, then made her own educated decisions. Oster learned that some pregnancy limitations are overly strict.
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The next big thing in pregnancy: Sequencing your baby’s genome

Non-invasive tests can now piece together entire fetal genomes and mine that genetic information for indicators of various disorders and abnormalities that can lead to health problems later on — things like sex chromosome abnormalities, Down syndrome, and a host of other developmental disorders. Initial trials have shown the tests to be so reliable that executives at more than one company vying for the lead in the nascent NIPT space — companies that include Verinata (owned by Illumina ( ILMN )), Sequenom ( SQNM ), Natera, Ariosa Diagnostics, and Ravgen — believe their tests will become a standard, routine part of prenatal care in the next two or three years. MORE: Iceland: A song of fire and ice “When you offset something like amniocentesis against NIPT — which is as simple as taking a blood sample — it becomes a no-brainer,” says Vijay Kumar, a health care analyst and associate managing director at International Strategy and Investing Group. “But then the question becomes cost, and given the current health care environment it becomes a much tougher discussion.” Indeed, it’s cost more so than science holding NIPT testing back at this point. The tests remain relatively expensive, around $800 at the low end, and just less than $3,000 for the more expensive screening methods.
For the original version including any supplementary images or video, visit http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2013/08/12/the-next-big-thing-in-pregnancy-sequencing-your-babys-genome/