Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think its a bit weird they are using the name already?

166 replies

LolaBellsAllTheWay · 27/12/2010 06:51

Sil is 23 weeks pregnant with a boy (as told at 20 week scan). The ils were at ours for dinner yesterday and she is refering to the baby by the chosen name, as is mil and other sil.

I just find this a bit weird. When i was pregnant with dds we knew both times and although we had names we didn't use them incase they didn't suit it, or the scan was wrong.

It might be grating on me a little as it was our choice if dds had been ds.

I also noticed that bil wasn't using it but i know he's not entirely happy with the choice so i find it weird that sil is using it before they've agreed on it.

Is it weird?

OP posts:
gorionine · 27/12/2010 09:21

the ones, not onces!Blush

mousesma · 27/12/2010 09:26

Childbirth isn't that unpredictable though really. The perinatal mortality rate (babies born dead after 24 weeks or dying in the first seven days of life) in the UK is 7.6 per thousand births. The vast majority of people who get past the 20 week scan go on to give birth to a live baby. That is not to say stillbirth never happens but to say that it is very common is scaremongering.

jester68 · 27/12/2010 09:27

With my first dd I found out at 20 weeks that she was a girl. And even though we had decided on the name for a girl early on in pregnancy I never actually called her it. I would say she (rather than it) but mainly called her bubba lol.

With my second we did not find out the sex so baby was also called bubba.

I bonded with them in pregnacy the same

tinselistooaddictive · 27/12/2010 09:30

I am with you OP, it is very odd. I hate it when people do this as I think it is incredibly unlucky. I am not particuarly superstitious but this is one of those things that gives me the creeps.

We had silly names for both of ours that were never intended to be real names.

IAmReallyFabNow · 27/12/2010 09:33

I had weekly scans with dd for the last 6 weeks or so.

There will always be things that people do that others think are weird but perfectly normal to other people. It is the way of the world.

TandB · 27/12/2010 09:36

I've never heard anyone talking about scans as a "bonding tool".

I don't believe that women are becoming dependent on scans to make sure they bond. It is natural for people to be impatient and curious about things like the gender of the baby, and to want to use technology that is available. 9 months is a long time to wait for something very exciting.

Having said that, I think that scans can be overused. I had a lot of them because of wrongly predicted very big baby.

I think women do exactly what we are intended to do, that is to bond with, protect and love the baby we are carrying. If it was knowing the sex, choosing a name or seeing the baby on a screen that caused those things to happen then no one who suffered a miscarriage in early pregnancy would be particularly upset by that reasoning.

HecTheHallsWithBoughsOfHolly · 27/12/2010 09:39

I did it. both times. had the scan, found out the gender, chose the name, began using it.

It felt normal, natural, right. there was a person growing inside me and that person deserved a name. I helped me to really bond with them. To see them as people, not just an extension of myself.

So, naturally, I don't think it's weird. Just a personal choice and no more weird than having a person growing inside you and calling them bean or baby or prawn or whatever

theevildead2 · 27/12/2010 09:45

If you KNOW what the baby's name will be and know the sex, it would be hard not to call the baby by the baby's name!

Most people are a bit unsure about names so they leave it, but doesn't make it more right that not.

Also while no baby is guarenteed, if I were to have a still born baby now at 37 weeks, the fact that I don't say my baby's name out loud (DH doesn't knwo the sex) woudln't change the fact that the name I have chosen is my baby's name. ANd I wouldn't use it in a subsequent pregnancy.

onimolap · 27/12/2010 09:46

mousesma: you omit those who find an anomaly at the 20 week scan and choose to terminate. This takes the loss rate to where it has been for a couple of decades now: just under 1:100. But you're right, in the main there is nothing that can be done, and it is pointless to dwell on the statistics.

But there are a lucky few whose baby can be given life-saving treatment in utero. A very strong argument for scanning.

I've walked in those shoes. How you bond with your baby isn't governed by what you learn from scans. What name, if any, you call your bump or child (whether born or unborn), is also unrelated to scans (unless sex-related for an unborn child). It's just personal choice.

Whether it's "weird" or not is just opinion.

ledkrsbellyislikesantas · 27/12/2010 09:50

i occasionally use one of the names i like for my baby(due in 5 wks)but this is mostly cos dd is so excited and also to try out the name to see how it sounds to help me decide,
im not hurting anyone but i do think in general pg women can be annoying with their ways,its just over excitment and why not eh?

sakura · 27/12/2010 09:55

gorionine this isn't really the thread for the 'safety of scans' discussion, but suffice it to say they have been linked to left-handedness and other brain changes. Left-handedness is not a problem in itself, but in a case where the foetus originally developed right-handed, then you begin to see that there are unexplained effects on children's brains, especially boys, apparently. THere is also a link between early scans and miscarriage, and I personally know of more than one woman who got all excited about seeing the heartbeat on screen, only to miscarry a few days later.

Now the bottom line is that nobody knows the effects of scans on foetuses.

Scans have their place, there's no doubt about that, but people do make money out of scanning, especially in private systems. Hospital machinery is big business.

I do think you're couting your chickens before they're hatched if you start calling oyour unborn baby by its name.

In many cultures around the world, including Japan, it's unheard of to decide the baby's name before the baby is born, precisely because of the unpredictability of birth (supersticious reasons) and also because the name might not suit the baby

sakura · 27/12/2010 10:01

ANd you know foetus's would have originally developed right-handed because there's a higher incidence of left-handedness amongst babies whose mothers were scanned a lot during pregnancy- more than average

IAmReallyFabNow · 27/12/2010 10:03

I was scanned a lot with dd and she is right handed.

sakura · 27/12/2010 10:04

Iam it's called statistics

That means there is a correlation between scans and increased left-handedness

It doesn't mean that every child scanned will become left-handed

sakura · 27/12/2010 10:06

there is also a correlation between lots of scans and early miscarriage

beijingaling · 27/12/2010 10:07

YABU. Each to their own.

IAmReallyFabNow · 27/12/2010 10:12

I know all that, sakura. I was just posting my experience.

onimolap · 27/12/2010 10:12

Actually, the correlation is unproven. There was one study from Sweden when scanning was fairly new which found an increase, but sample size meant it could not be determined if it was statistically significant. Further studies were never carried out to establish if this were a genuine correlation as ethical permission could not be granted as the benefits of scans were too overwheming to make it safe to have an unscanned control group.

TandB · 27/12/2010 10:14

Sakura - we don't "know" at all. That study leads to no more than a "possible" and itself concedes that its results were not significant and could be due to chance.

ie it might have no more strength than Iamreallyfabnow's anecdotal evidence.

The problem with making very sweeping judgements about whether a practice is "good" or "bad" is that something like prenatal bonding is incredibly personal. If scans were found to be dangerous and stopped tomorrow, it wouldn't stop people speculating and wondering and hoping. Are you in Japan? You mention a cultural practice there. In the UK, there is a much stronger, historical cultural tendency for people to talk a lot about an unborn child, and there are all sorts of old wives' tales and folklore about finding out, or even influencing, the sex of the child. I don't think the current tendency to find out the sex at scans (not that everyone does it) is anything new - it is just new technology applied to an age-old issue.

pozzled · 27/12/2010 10:15

"I do think you're couting your chickens before they're hatched if you start calling oyour unborn baby by its name."

Sorry Sakura but I really don't buy this argument.

With DD we had chosen her name before she was born and we used a shortened version of it- it did feel much more personal than calling the baby 'it'.

Of course we knew perfectly well that there was no certainty she would be born alive and healthy, but if the worse had happened I actually think it would have been a comfort to think 'we lost our daughter x'. We would have grieved for her as a daughter whether she had a name or not. I'd be surprised to find any parents who could lose a baby, especially in the latter stages of pregnancy, and get over it quickly on the basis that it didn't have a name and wasn't really a person yet.

It's a personal choice, but I don't think there's anything wrong with using a name or that it's in any way 'worse' for the parents to bond before birth.

JanetPlanet · 27/12/2010 10:21

Weird and creepy to pick a name for a baby before it's born PressureDrop! Really? I guess that means a lot of us are weird and creepy. If my son had died he still would have been called by the name we picked. Isnt it morbid and weird and creepy not to bond with a baby and assume it might die. That's a very pessimistic attitude Sakura. Are you advocating that I should ignore the next pregnancy just in case the worst happens? Nevermind that bump or that baby kicking, it just might die! Magical thinking, such as not having a pram in the house or not naming the baby will not stop bad things from happening. I have had an ectopic pregnancy so have experience of losing a baby.

tyler80 · 27/12/2010 10:24

I don't see what's wrong with using a name.

Even if something terrible happened, at 23 weeks I would have thought most (all?) would still name their baby.

TrillianAstra · 27/12/2010 10:32

"When i was pregnant with dds we knew both times and although we had names we didn't use them incase they didn't suit it, or the scan was wrong."

Scan being wrong is much more likely for you (with DDs) than for them with a DS. If you see a willy, it's a willy.

Regarding names not suiting - do you really think that one squished-looking red-faced goo-covered newborn looks more like a Jonathan and another looks more like an Andrew? If you were unsure of the name, maybe, but if you have been calling him Samuel for months then when he comes out you're not going to think "that doesn't look like a Samuel", you're going to think "so that's what Samuel looks like".

FrostyAndSlippery · 27/12/2010 10:32

WTF?!? why is it weird? Fair enough if you don't want to do it but that doesnt mean people who do it are weird Hmm

Once we had chosen our DCs names that was what we called them. It helped us all bond.

I do understand the "don't count your chickens" thing, but say something had gone wrong later in pregnancy, it's not as though not having a name would make it easier, is it?

TrillianAstra · 27/12/2010 10:33

Oh, and correlation between more scans and higher chance of complications/miscarriage?

You don't think that's because higher-risk pregancies get more scans?