1) Don't ask me if I've had the baby yet. If you post on my wall or comment on a post asking "Are you still pregnant?" or "Wow! You still haven't had her/her yet?" or "This is taking tooooooo long!" or "Where is this baby you've been promising me?" or "Baby time yet?" ... I will delete it. (Note, this are all real quotes taken from a friend's FB page over the last few weeks .. and she's not even due yet.). Guess what ... it takes a long time to make a baby. "Due Dates" are based on 40 weeks, but did you know that the average first-time pregnancy lasts 41 weeks and 1 day?(http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2342739) Babies are not "Post Due" until 42 weeks. So people, keep your astonishment that yes, that baby is still inside by body to yourself. Believe me, I'm aware.
While we're on the subject, don't ask me how many more days until I have the baby. Cause I don't know. Baby will come when baby will come. And only about 5% of babies are born on their due dates, so please stop fixating on that day. I won't be. (You'll also notice that I'll stop answering the "When are you due" question after a while, because I don't want to fixate on the date. "Sometime in April or May" is going to have to suffice.)
2) Don't tell me how fat I'm getting, or that I'm not big enough to be full term, or that I must be having twins. Most women do not like comments about their size, and pregnant women are no different. Commenting on the size of my belly is rude, and it makes it sound like you have nothing better to say. Here's are some suggestions: "You look great!" or "How are you feeling?" or "Can I bring you a coffee/dinner/flowers?"
On the same note ...
3) Don't comment on by baby's size. If he's 9 pounds, don't scream that he's huge and I must be "feeling sore" or that you hope they cut me open to get him out. Because if I'm healthy and I still grew a 9 pound baby, then I'll be able to push out my 9 pound baby. Unless I have Gestational Diabetes, there's no reason to think that my body will grow a baby that's too big to get out. All that comment does is perpetuate the fear of "big babies" requiring induction or cesareans.
And if he's tiny, don't say that be probably just "fell out of me", unless you want to diminish all the work I just did. Because even a 5 or 6 pound baby requires labor, and labor is hard.
The tradition of describing the baby by weight came around because it was the easiest way to determine the baby's health -- which is the reason why when we say "10-pound baby" we go "WOW!!!" but when we say "4-pound baby" we say "ooooo, that's not good." It's ingrained in our culture, but it doesn't need to be anymore. How about you ask me "How's he doing?" And since I'm clearly on Facebook already, I'll just tell you "He's doing great".
4) Don't suggest that I'll need pain medication, or tell me that I'm crazy for planning an unmedicated birth. I probably won't be using an epidural, until it's absolutely necessary. I'm not ruling it out, but I'm planning to go med-free, that's just how I roll. It's possible to have babies without pain medication, it happens every day. Again, please keep your astonishment to yourself.
5) Don't tell me horror stories. Don't tell me how your mother's aunt's daughter's friend's neighbor died because she had a homebirth. Or that you couldn't breastfeed. Or that you read on Huffpost that my uterus can explode during labor. Just don't. Now, as an educator, I would love to ask you why you feel the need to talk about horrific things related to childbirth, because I think we could uncover a few things. And I'd love to talk about the misperceptions about breastfeeding difficulties. But don't put that into my head when I'm about to have a baby. Only peaceful, positive things here. Need a suggestion? How about the classic, "How are you feeling", or "You're going to do awesome," or "I can't wait to hear all about it" (oh, does no one else like to hear all the details of other people's births? Just me?).
These are just a few I've come up with so far. More will come, I'm sure of it.
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Interesting facts one should know.
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