Stupid advice!

It's amazing that so many people have lived past the first few months of life, according to everything I read these days.

There is so much (conflicting) advice on how to be pregnant and then take care of an infant it could make a head spin around and around and around.

No wonder I'm so dizzy lately.

When I was born, my mother, as per the advice of her doctor, put me to sleep every night on my stomach. When I told her recently that doing so now would be akin to inviting a venomous snake to share a bed with my bundle-of-joy-to-be, she started laughing. Out loud. A lot. Let's call it howling.

"Ma," I said. "Babies have to sleep only on their backs now."

"You're kidding me," she said. "But how will they learn to use their necks? And, uhm, you're still alive."

"Babies are also not allowed to be anywhere near bumper pads," I added.

"So children just squish themselves up against the bars of the crib when they start to move?" she asked.

"I guess so," I said.

More howling.

Every day it seems I read some new advice. "Exercise during pregnancy!" I've read in many places." Too much exercise can be fatal," I read in an online magazine recently. "Don't skip rope," I read in one book. "Skipping rope is fine!" someone told me.

"Don't drink soy milk while pregnant because it promotes allergies," a friend said recently. "Soy milk is an excellent source of calcium while pregnant," I read on the Internet when I looked it up.

Admittedly, I don't trust the Internet much of the time, but I can't seem to figure out who or what to trust. Period. Correct, definitive answers seem as difficult to find as the fountain of youth (anyone know where that is, by the way?).

So, I've decided to just try my best, do what I think is right and feel guilty most of the time.

But what else is new? That's always been my strategy!

Comments

[Roxanne]

I understand what you mean. I try to rely on books most of the time. Also, I don't trust any advice unless I have read it a few times or I heard it from a professional. And if I am really worried I just ask a doctor and stay away from the internet. I learned my lesson when i googled PUPPP which is a skin condition I developed at six months. (Don't you dare google it! You'll be sorry)
I looked and looked for hours and only felt worse after. Then a week later I spoke with my dermatologist for 2 minutes and felt comfortable and safe. Bottom line I'm not an expert and neither are my friends or people on the internet.

[New Mommy Too]

I was under fire with all the dos and don'ts hurled at me from well-meaning friends and relatives. I followed my instincts, educated myself when I could and and brought any other questions to my ob/gyn. In the end I think it was safer to trust a person who had to go to school for an extra 10 years to learn all this medical stuff rather aunties who claim to know better.

[Janet]

Invest in Kids has developed "the mother of all parenting programs" most of it online with some face to face sessions with parent educators. It is called the Parenting Partnership. All the most current information is available to you including resources, a library, medical information, couple/relationship information AND when you sign up, you have access to a blog connecting you to other parents, a nurse and a mental health practicioner. It is really hard to decipher everyone's well intentioned advice....This program helps you and your partner figure it out for you and your new family.

[SP]

Funny. I found this site looking for info on whether or not it was OK to skip rope while pregnant!

I'm just 2months and something in, but I'm losing my mind. From what I can tell, there's a lot of CYA (Cover-Your-Assets) going on out there. Up until the moment I found out I was pregnant (which was about a month ago) I lifted weights, skipped rope, did kickboxing, went to Yoga and had a good time doing it. As soon as my trainer found out I was pregnant, I was told to stop skipping rope and kickboxing. I don't do contact kickboxing, just cardio-kickbox, so it isn't like I'm going to be punched in the stomach, so I'm not too sure what's up with that! As for the skipping, I'm not sure why jogging's OK but low impact (I have a bad ankle) skipping isn't. From what I can tell, both these activities are off limits because they are high impact (bad for the joints) and may cause me to fall over because I'm *presto-change-o* suddenly structurally unstable by virtue of having a bean-sized proto-human within me.

I was also told not to do walking lunges. I still can't figure that one out. At all.

No one has done any research on this because of the ethics involved in doing research on pregnant women (won't someone think of the fetus!), so everything is based on best guesses and after-the-fact studies based on questionnaires. Thus why we have crazy guidelines like "don't take a hot bath or overheat while pregnant". What about all those women who walked to do groceries in mid-July while pregnant? Did they (and their children) all have problems?

From reading the current list of "don'ts", it's amazing that anyone was ever able to carry a healthy, viable child to term...EVER.

Then again, I may just be upset because I'm hormonal. I should probably just "there-there" myself and have a nap.

[snakecharmer]

LOL! I've only recently found out I'm pregnant and I'm already confused and frustrated by all the conflicting advice! Drink caffeine? Exercise? Sushi? I'm still not sure what I may inadvertently do that could permanently damage my little zygote and make me 'Bad Mother of the Year'. *sigh*

Thanks for writing this blog btw...It's a refreshing insight into pregnancy!