Pregnant Women

[Guest Raidne]

Hell yeah, the danger of cat litter is one thing we can all get behind.

[TerraPrime]

Do you ever find yourself "needing a glass of wine"?

For cooking, yes, and for splashing onto faces of annoying people, too.

But your point is taken.

[Lany Freelove Cassandra]

My unit was getting ready to deploy for a few weeks of fun in the field and a NATO exercise. Night before we headed out we all had a few drinks. I think I had 3 shots of Ozo (sp?) My period was due during the deployment...it never came. Made camping out much nicer, but also meant I was pregnant and drank. Oh No! How could I have possibly done that? After all I was a woman in my mid 20's who was sexually active. I should have known I could have been pregnant and not drank any alcohol.

There is obviously only one solution...women cannot be allowed to drink until their tubes are tied or menopause hits.

ftr, my son was just fine...not even all the marching around with packs and guns and sleeping in tents hurt him.

[Balefont]

I haven't been drunk since my 30th birthday. :(

That was nice. Not nearly as epic as our other drunken nights but it was still nice.

[Sis Who Swears]

Hmmm. Where to start...

The SO's bitch of a sister freaked out on me at a family breakfast for putting peanut butter on my toast. "Your baby could die!!!!" We left shortly after.

I went to watch his band play at a bar and left early because I couldn't stand all the judgmental looks. I was drinking water FFS but I felt like I needed a sign that said 'This is WATER so fuck off!'

Just for the record, I have not had a drop of alcohol since I became pregnant and while it's mostly been fairly easy sometimes I would kill for a frosty cold beer but I'm afraid that would just make me want more which is why I haven't had any.

AND I too, was given the 'a little alcohol won't hurt anything' speech (by no less than THREE docs) so those of you who feel the need to tell us otherwise can fuck right off.

My brother asked me when I was going to get rid of of 'ALLLL those animals?' (2 cats, one tiny dog)

And when I asked why the hell I would do that he was like, 'well you have ALLLL those animals. And you're pregnant!'

I was like, 'so what, they are my family and I would never get rid of them' to which he lamely replied, 'pets get jealous and stuff and they are soooo much work'.

My response to that was, 'so are children, maybe you should have got rid of your son when your daughter came along?'

Haven't talked to him since. :lol:

My aunts think it's perfectly fine to ask me how much weight I have gained. EVERYFUCKINGTIME they see me.

An uncle at Christmas told me I should not be eating nuts and bolts because they are full of salt. I said, "Mmmm I KNOW! That's why I'm eating them!'

And if one more motherfucker touches my stomach I am going to fucking lose it. *shuddershuddershudder*

My sister pretends that I am not pregnant at all. Absolutely does not care. But that's hardly surprising, I've whined about what a selfish bitch she is more than once here.

What I miss most though is cigarettes, my doctors said 3-4 a day would be okay but I quit and it sucks. (It was easy to quit in the first trimester because just looking at them made me want to throw up.) Now that the nausea is gone I crave them again. It is VERY hard not to give in but so far so good.

I could go on all day but I won't. And to post about all the physical shit I'm dealing with would take days and I see it's mostly been covered anyways.

In spite of all this bullshit, it's soooo going to be worth it. :wub:

[Prince Alexander]

Might be just anecdotal, but I heard from more than one source that stress from not smoking is more harmful to fetus than smoking. I can kind of see that. Back 40-60 years ago freaking everyone smoked and most of us turned out ok.

[Guest Raidne]

What I miss most though is cigarettes, my doctors said 3-4 a day would be okay but I quit and it sucks.

Well, holy shit, I had no idea. Granted I would 100% abstain too, but I always thought that was one of those rock solid, 100% no things.

[Chaldanya]

If my mum has mentioned it once she's mentioned it 1000 times: getting rid of our three cats! For the exact same reasons as above. We flat out told her no so now she's bought a cat net for every conceivable bit of furniture my boy will rest on!!

More than happy about the cat litter thing.

I did a post on LJ a short while ago about the things you're not told about pregnancy:

The all day sickness that lasts well into the second trimester

The debilitating tiredness in the first trimester.

How weird smells will just make you hurl (granary bread and I still can't look an egg in the eye)

Oh and the random aches and pains as your innards do the hokey cokey

Dont get me wrong I look at my little man in the scan photo and it's worth it bit by god I have yet to figure out how women have the strength to do it more than once.

N

[IheartTesla]

BTW, the Dr that delivered our son - her ob/gyn- told Krista explicitly that in her 3rd trimester a glass of wine would not have an impact as the development that it could impact has all ready been completed.

That answers a question I had, as to whether it was worse to [insert thing not to consume here] later in the pregnancy. I coulda sworn I read the words "...all the way to the third trimester" somewhere.

I do find it a bit surprising that modern science does not have it down to ...well, a science what kinds of things can pass through the barrier and exactly what effects they have on a developing embryo/fetus/baby.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

If my mum has mentioned it once she's mentioned it 1000 times: getting rid of our three cats! For the exact same reasons as above. We flat out told her no so now she's bought a cat net for every conceivable bit of furniture my boy will rest on!!

More than happy about the cat litter thing.

I did a post on LJ a short while ago about the things you're not told about pregnancy:

The all day sickness that lasts well into the second trimester

The debilitating tiredness in the first trimester.

How weird smells will just make you hurl (granary bread and I still can't look an egg in the eye)

Oh and the random aches and pains as your innards do the hokey cokey

Dont get me wrong I look at my little man in the scan photo and it's worth it bit by god I have yet to figure out how women have the strength to do it more than once.

N

I STILL can't eat salsa and miso soup.

[TerraPrime]

You know, in many discussions about abortion and women's right to their own bodies, I often use that if one views the developing fetus as a full human being, then one must also logically approve efforts to ban women from smoking cigarettes or drinking alcohol during pregnancy, thinking that this is a rather good argument to show just how absurd the logical conclusion is for their argument.

Now, I'm not so sure that that's such a good argument.

[Tempra]

My wife's ob and midwife both said a glass of wine with dinner would be fine a couple times aweek. However, my wife won't go near a buffet let alone alcohol.

On Valentine's Day, my wife ordered a dish with wine sauce for dinner. The waitress reassured my wife that our baby would be OK because the chef only uses a "dash" of wine in the sauce. WTF? Really?

[Gold Storm]

My wife is due in March kid #2, she has dealt with some of these same issues/problems. She was never a big drinker but loves coffee. She talked to er doctor and can have a some coffee without hurting the baby. She eats peanut butter with this kid and #1 again no problems with any allergies. She does have some diet restrictions; like she has to eat eggs almost every morning for the protein and cannot have a lot of carbs. She plans on sending me out the day after she gives birth to get bagels.

[mouse]

The all day sickness that lasts well into the second trimester

. . . . by god I have yet to figure out how women have the strength to do it more than once.

They say you forget the morning sickness.

I never forgot the morning sickness. Instead, I demanded my OB prescribe anti-nausea drugs when I got pregnant the second time. They were heavenly.

[Sis Who Swears]

Well, holy shit, I had no idea. Granted I would 100% abstain too, but I always thought that was one of those rock solid, 100% no things.

Obviously they would prefer that you don't smoke at all but if it's going to stress you (and therefore your baby) right the fuck out to quit, it's sometimes better just to cut wayyy back. I just figured that if I could do that I might as well try to quit altogether. Which I did.

It's the same for some anti-depressants and anti-anxiety meds. I was put back on a teeny amount of both when I started to sense my moods getting worse and all my docs agreed it was better that I not go off the deep end while pregnant. In other words it's a risk vs benefit thing. And every case is different.

I just had my first 3D ultrasound yesterday and he is doing just great. :)

It seems to me in most cases not stressing the baby is THE most important thing.

[Angalin]

Dont get me wrong I look at my little man in the scan photo and it's worth it bit by god I have yet to figure out how women have the strength to do it more than once.

I think it's because the sleep deprivation of those first months is so bad. I barely remember giving birth. ;)

I demanded my OB prescribe anti-nausea drugs when I got pregnant the second time. They were heavenly.

Mmmm... diclectin is your friend. :wideeyed:

[kairparavel]

I recall harassing my mother when this study came out. That was 1992. And then this came out two years ago.

For each cigarette a pregnant woman lights up each day, she raises her baby's risk of strabismus by 5 percent, new research suggests.

Further, the effect of smoking on the debilitating eye disorder may become more potent later in pregnancy.

It's something near and dear to my heart seeing as my mother smoked Player's King Size for all three of her pregnancies and we all were born with varying degrees of cross-eye. Both my younger sisters had corrective eye surgery and my middle sister and I started wearing corrective glasses at age TWO. My youngest sister got the rawest end of the deal, because though the surgery corrected her eyes it left some awful scar tissue, still visible when she turns her eyes to the extreme.

But I found this interesting, from the second study:

Drinking small amounts of alcohol during pregnancy actually appeared to reduce the risk of strabismus. However, missing data may have distorted this result, the researchers caution. "We do not recommend consuming alcohol during pregnancy," Torp-Pedersen emphasized.

Dr. Philip Lempert of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, expressed concern that the study was unable to capture information about alcohol consumption during the critical first trimester, noting in an email to Reuters Health that "timing is the critical factor."

In the other thread (sorry Sis, I'll go back and delete my contribution to the derail - actually I'm quoted and stuff so for continuity I'll just say sorry here,again) I suggested my distaste for pregnant women who smoke, and I still stand by that. But on the other hand, until someone passes a law making it illegal for pregnant women to do ____________ activity, then give them what they want. If you're in a position to refuse, that's one thing, but if mommy to be rolls into 7/11 for a carton of Camels and a six pack of Natty Bo, she gets to buy them so long as she's of legal age. Period.

In a bar or restaurant, how do you know you're not serving booze to an alcoholic? Or selling cigarettes to a lung transplant recipient, or a Big Mac to a guy who just had bypass surgery? (A guy I worked with years ago had heart surgery THREE times before he decided to ditch his McDonald's habit. Something about almost dying on the table the last time apparently.) So if people have no concern or qualms about that kind of stuff, what is so magical about pregnant women that brings out the moral fairy dust that gets sprinkled around her perimeter?

ETA this is the link I posted about fetal development and alcohol consumption

But, how many people know of someone who didn't know they were pregnant until they were going into labor and smoke and drank (and other stuff) the entire time and their kid seemingly turned out fine? I know of two instances, including a former coworker's gf, now wife.

[Whitestripe]

Re: morning sickness: just be glad that it went away for sone of you. I barfed until the day I had my daughter. I was actually *happy* that she came a month early. I knew I would stop puking.

[Ken Stone]

In a bar or restaurant, how do you know you're not serving booze to an alcoholic? Or selling cigarettes to a lung transplant recipient, or a Big Mac to a guy who just had bypass surgery? (A guy I worked with years ago had heart surgery THREE times before he decided to ditch his McDonald's habit. Something about almost dying on the table the last time apparently.) So if people have no concern or qualms about that kind of stuff, what is so magical about pregnant women that brings out the moral fairy dust that gets sprinkled around her perimeter?

In those above examples people are hurting themselves by their behavior. Most people are okay with that. The magic moral fairy dust is the fact that there is a defenseless baby getting hurt. Like I said upthread, if I filled a baby bottle with vodka and gave it to my baby there would be a shit ton of moral fairy dust sprinkled around. People don't like to see baby's harmed. Or puppies.

[Lady Olenna]

I genuinely don't know where to start with this post.

There are no medical studies that say that one occasional glass of wine is detrimental to the health on the fetus or the woman. So no it's not a joke. I've had as many as four glasses of wine and we are both very much fine.

Unless you are going to treat every woman between the ages of 12 and 50 as though they are potentially pregnant then you truly don't have a leg to stand on. People can look pregnant when they're not, some people might go until their eight month before showing.

The attitude of deciding what a woman should and should not consume is extremely paternalistic. Pregnant women have enough to deal with such as random strangers touching their belly or unwanted advice without random strangers then deciding that they get to police caffeine/mayonnaise/alcohol/nicotine intake.

My cousin smoked through her pregnancy. My goddaughter was born three years ago and she is a fabulous person who is healthy and bright and boisterous. Anecdote =|= data.

N

Ok. There is sooo much to say on this thread but for the most part I agee with Chaldanya. I used to sling coffee as a job to get through school and it would PISS me off when other workers would decide that pregnant women would get their coffee DECAF whether they ordered it that way or not. I know that it probably happened to me when I went in to get coffee when I was pregnant. It's not right to make that decision for someone else. And I would get dirty looks when I would walk around with my coffee but I just shot them with the "look at me one second longer and I will cut you" look.

I was also very petite (short and thin... not so thin after baby was born) when I was pregnant and had to constantly fend off the wandering hands that wanted to touch my belly. But I'm not shy about putting people in their place when they are out of line and obviously haven't any social etiquette and training in general manners. I'm not saying I would bite their head off but I would simply say "I beg your pardon but I prefer you not touch me". Plus for any stranger to be so bold enough to even try and touch a pregnant and hormonal woman is just not using sound judgement.

I personally did not drink while preggo because I just don't drink much at all. But for the women that do - it's their choice. I tend to think that people go way overboard with the Fetal Alcohol Syndrome thing - that one or two drinks will cause this condition. I personally think it has more to do with heavy drinking or even moderate drinking over a long period of time. I could be wrong, maybe there has been studies to prove me wrong - but it was irrelevent to me so I didn't think much about it.

But what do people think that pregnant women drank back in the day? Even in the times of the Westeros world? They drank Mead or ale because sanitation was not what it is now and water would often cause disease. And somehow the speicies survived.

Before you jump on me for this, I'm just palying devil's advocate, I'm not condoning drinking while pregnant. Like I said I chose not to. But I find no need to go to some preggo lady in a bar and tell her she's killing her baby. Or for that matter screw with someone's coffee.