To decline weighing

Midwife here, we use booking weight to calculate many things including medications and your risk of developing a blood clot (VTE) as well as to calculate your personalised grow chart so we can accurately plot the growth of your baby at your antenatal appointments. Women with high BMI will need growth scans as the SFH measurements are potentially less accurate, and may need further discussion around place of birth as intermittent auscultation is not always possible due to clients weight, this is not supposed to discriminate but it supposed to keep babies safe so we can monitor properly during labour. Women with high BMI are also at greater risk of developing things like gestational diabetes and would be offered additional tests for this, as well as potentially needing aspirin to help with placental function and fetal growth, reduce the risk of hypertension etc.

TLDR we use booking weight for lots of important things and whilst it is not compulsory to be weighed declining to do so makes it harder for us to safely care for you and your baby.

Really good to see you’ve changed your opinion, and I agree with the poster that said you said you had researched it, but didn’t know the common things they look for with BMI and you don’t want to start being combative and you can pick bigger battles later on.

Sudden or rapid weight loss is also an issue. It's not just about the amount gained overall.

I've not rtft, so pardon of this has been said already.

I think it's shameful that weight during pregnancy is not monitored here. Bmi is an indicator of potential weight relayed pregnancy issues. But, also your weight gain can say a tonne about how your pregnancy was progressing.

Sudden or rapid weight gain to be a warning sign for pre eclampsia for example. Or gesrional diabetes. Plus many more I'm sure.

I was the one who kept on top on my weight throughout my pregnancy and from the second trimester was querying why on a second pregnancy I had only gain 3 kgs by 25wks. (I am average weight for a short ass. ) I was also classed as high risk due to previous pregnancy and delivery.

Low and behold, have my bump measurements done and I'm being booked in for growth scans. Baby was 5th centile and was dropping. Fluids, everything else was normal.

I firmly believe that if I was having my weight monitored properly this may have been averted or caught earlier. The amount of anxiety that it caused was unreal. On top of it all. I delivered early.

Just have your weight taken and realise that it's one of first things you'll be sacrificing for your baby. Those compromises and sacrifices will be on going throughout their lives.

So much drama about nothing. Do you always operate like that? You are going to go barmy once the baby is here. Chill!

I didn't think it was anything to do with working out your BMI anyway. Surely they weigh you to monitor that you are putting on weight healthily during pregnancy?

Why would you be the same as your sister? You’re being awkward and this is not about you but the health of the baby. We all know BMI is outdated and doesn’t even take into consideration some ethnicities but yabu, imo.

I put on about 4 stone in a pregnancy and it all came off slowly with breastfeeding. The reason for the weight gain was the increased insulin resistance that comes with pregnancy and the reason for the weight loss was because breastfeeding speeds the metabolism. Both normal and healthy processes. All mammals put on significant weight during pregnancy

Not 4 stone it isn’t. And yes but that weight should be the baby, sack and placenta, not actual fat. Obesity is extremely problematic, pervades every part of the body and is causing bad maternal outcomes for both mums and babies. Trying to brush it away with some flimsy explanations because it’s a bit embarrassing isn’t the answer.

As an older woman, I’m with the OP. With every interaction with the NHS, the scales come out. It gets annoying, gaslighty. Got a niggle? Let’s weigh you. Perimenopause symptoms? Step on that scale over there. Men aren’t subjected to the waggy NHS finger this way. Except, well, literally, when they hit 50 and have to undergo a finger-up-the-bum check.

I was lucky a couple of decades ago that I had a family doctor who asked me whether I wanted to be weighed. I put on about 4 stone in a pregnancy and it all came off slowly with breastfeeding. The reason for the weight gain was the increased insulin resistance that comes with pregnancy and the reason for the weight loss was because breastfeeding speeds the metabolism. Both normal and healthy processes. All mammals put on significant weight during pregnancy. I didn’t want the NHS telling me ‘oh you’ve exceeding the half pound a month maximum weight gain’. My doctor just used the old fashioned ‘Yes you look OK’. He was very experienced. I was also lucky that he had a policy if allowing new mothers of children under 1 to simply ring him up if they had a worry. He’s step out of whatever consultation he had to take a call. Those days are gone.

A couple of other facts - also normal to gain weight steadily over time. Older people are healthiest and protected from certain conditions at a BMI of around 27.

I feel like this is a classic example of dramatising. Surely medical professionals need your BMI during pregnancy for a host of reasons

Yabu, glad you've changed your mind. BMI I'd very important for pregnancy, also knowing roughly how much weight you've gained each time you see the midwife is important if you're deemed to be in a high risk group. Just let them weigh you but don't look at the number yourself if you're worried about obsessing.

That doesn’t explain why not all hospital trusts have the same policy, nor indeed all countries. You can’t assume all procedures are actually beneficial. It’s important to use critical thinking skills in life and particularly in navigating pregnancy and birth. When I was pregnant with my first in the mid 90s one of my midwives said the bump was ‘measuring large’. She suggested I went in for an extra scan. I discussed it with my GP who said baby was a ‘nice size’ and reassured me. Weight isn’t really a useful indicator.

This is what I was thinking. I knew I was asked my weight for this.

YABU. I know one woman who has had an ED in the past and she weighed and asked her midwife to never tell her.

It's for the good of your baby, not to judge you. Just get weighed.

@schoollane - totally agree. So much stuff is systemic, stressful and unnecessary and based on fear not facts. This week a younger friend was pressured into induction because they claimed baby was 9 lb 10. Induction failed, as so many do, traumatic labour followed by EMCS. Baby was 8lbs. I had all three of mine at home - first with lovely GP in attendance. I wasn’t ‘allowed’ a waterbirth as my trust did train midwives so was hauled out of it for third stage and had a tear, I was lucky as was a straightforward birth. Had independent midwives for 2 and 3 and the difference was enormous. No hospital visits at all apart from scans, no internal exams, no pressure to induce with DS 3 who went to 42 and 4 days. Just careful, focused care.p and two water births with no tearing.

Ah yes so did I actually. Forgot about that one ha 🤦🏼‍♀️

Meh slow news day really if this is the kind of think that phases you :

I don’t disagree with any of this, and I have had home births and think they are great for low risk pregnancies.

I am curious what you mean by having done your home births “alone”?

if you think it will adversely affect your mental health ask to be blind weighed

I got weighed at the 12 week scan today. I think different hospital trusts are different.

A good reason to know your weight at the start of pregnancy is, if you are very sick in the first trimester you can measure if you are losing too much weight. I'm signed off sick with hyperemesis gravidarum at the moment and I have lost a considerable amount of weight, which isn't ideal for a pregnancy when you don't have much to lose to begin with. It isn't just about BMI.

Speaking as a midwife thank you for this sensible and truthful post.

in the uk you only get weighed twice so not something you would or need to obsess about. Booking and then at 36 weeks from what I remember. I’m a healthy BMI and just said when I was getting weighed at 36 weeks that I didn’t want to know what my weight was as was feeling a bit down about appearance etc so thought it would make me feel worse x

I didn't know they weighed you... didn't weigh me during both of my pregnancies - I think they asked me my weight before my C-section maybe

Childbirth was so dangerous because the vast majority of women died of infection and haemorrhage, both now thankfully extremely rare for a woman birthing in the UK. Plus eclampsia which has been screened for decades.

The maternal death rate has risen according to latest figures (even removing the effect of COVID), so all this rise in interventions is not improving safety for women.

I'm not saying there is never a place for medical intervention, of course there is. But those levels of intervention are staggering, rising, and I am uncomfortable with people having a pop at the OP for not wanting to be weighed because the "professionals know best".