to be completely shocked and disgusted at the leaflet I've just been given by my mw???

[mummylovesnancy]

This leaflet, titled 'Raised BMI in Pregnancy' was passed on to me by my midwife at my booking in appointment yesterday. Along with the words 'You can't have a home birth, you probably won't deliver naturally and you'll be given consultant led care.'
I'm 28, I have 2 PERFECTLY healthy children who both have perfect height to weight ratios, eat well, are active and are generally normal children. I weigh 13st and I'm 5'2 which puts me in the 'obese' catagory according to the good ol' BMI index of wonder. I have been roughly this weight and exactly this height for all of my adult life. I am overweight, I accept that, but what I don't accept is being told to read this sodding leaflet which tells me, among various other little pearlers, that:
*I will have raised blood pressure. (Not 'I may', 'I WILL')
*I will be prone to urinary tract infections. (never had one in my life!)
*'Bigger Ladies' (exact wordage) get more blood clots. (Dumb Fuck)
*Examinations will be difficult. (Why? Because you have to part all my layers of fat to get to my vag?! How fucking degrading)
*I will have restricted mobilisation. (Will I? Because I don't now, will it automatically come with being fat and preggers?)
*Putting in a drip will be difficult. (yeah because my hands are so freaking chubby.)
*Breastfeeding will be challenging (I've managed it with two babies, now because you've changed your guidelines I think I might struggle.)
And my favourite one yet:
*The risk of stillbirth or your baby dying in the first 28 days is increased in 'larger ladies' (Thanks for that one, nhs, I just had a misscarriage 8 weeks ago. Was it because I'm fat?)

It also mentions on about 7 occasions that I may want an epidural. Is that to keep me quiet?! It also offers to refer me to a dietician and a counsellor.

I have been overweight (or a larger or bigger lady, as the nhs prefers) and given birth naturally twice with absolutely no complications and one of them was a home birth. I can't believe I have to read all this shit. The idiot who wrote this doesn't even know how to place an apostrophe or comma ffs!

Does anyone agree with me that this is a disgusting, degrading, scare mongering piece of shit or am I being an unreasonable pregnant wreck??

"But what was more weird was denying yourself Tiramisu and having fruit salad instead in order to prevent weight gain. Again that is definitely stuck in the diet mentality."

Hahahahahahaha! What rot!

Deciding to eat something nutritious and full of good vitamins over something fatty and sugary is a really good idea!

And find fruit salad really enjoyable.

Wanting to be fit and healthy is about as far from self hatred, self punishment, and self loathing as you can get.

She's not talking about making choices for nutrition, she's making choices to avoid weight gain. That's a dieters' mentality.

thunder you won't put on weight if you occassionally eat tiramisu or more than 2 biscuits. You probably will if you eat them every day. People that are thin do make these kinds of choices every day ,without really thinking about it too much. I know because I was thin myself until a few years ago. When I was younger I couldn't eat whatever I fancied because I couldn't afford it or wasn't in control of the shopping. Now I am, I can eat pretty much whatever and how much I fancy and I have had to learn how to control myself.

I think it's time I disengaged with thunder. There is just no sense in your posts at all. You just don't get it.

custard absolutely right - and entirely sensible.

thunder why do you equate wanting to lose weight in order to be healthier with self loathing ,hatred and punishment? That just doesn't make sense to me.

I am mid forties and have never dieted in my life. Neither have I ever been above a size 10 or 12 ( and I am tall and muscular) except after and during pregnancy.

I eat full fat butter, cheese etc. But I don't gorge on a whole packet of biscuits and I exercise 5 or 6 days a week in a sport I love.

It takes work to be a healthy weight, self discipline, self love and an appreciation of what being fat can do to your body.

Thunder, you are genuinely in real denial about fat and diet. It's quite worrying reading your posts. The vast, vast majority of healthy sized women are not that size through self abuse or extreme behaviours.

And I would suspect that far more obese women fit the self hatred mould than slim women. I bloody love my body, I look and feel fantastic. Smug? Yeah, probably but self loathing? ha.

Never before on Mumsnet have I seen someone talk as much shit as thunderboltsandlightning is talking right now!

Lookat - I think it is assumed that fat women will be filled with self loathing but I can assure you that is not the case.

I find the idea of eating a whole packet of jaffa cakes because 'they are designed to be eaten like that' and 'it was fun' to be extreme - honestly, I do. People don't 'deny' themselves the 'pleasure' of eating a whole pack because of being 'in a diet mentality' - most people (surely?!) just wouldn't find it pleasurable.

To eat a whole pack (ever) is either i) greedy or ii) a sign of an unhealthy relationship with food

I suppose we are all capable of being greedy from time to time (though I can honestly say I have never eaten a whole pack of jaffa cakes, and I do quite like them!). And while it's not a terrible moral failing, it's probably something most of us would prefer not to be. Being greedy all the time is probably an eating disorder.

To present the ability to eat a whole packet as a sign of being liberated from the tyranny of 'fat hatred' is a sign of being in denial, I would say.

Let's see the threads where you go on about alcoholics or anorexics being in denial then exoticfruits.

They are in denial and the won't be able to change until they admit there is a problem.
13stone is an unhealthy weight for a woman of 5 ft 2 ins full stop.

I lost the weight once I stopped dieting, stopped counting calories and stopped weighing myself. I changed my eating habits. I cut out processed food as much as possible,had smaller portions, I read labels on things, eat lots of fruit and veg and would only have something like Tiramisu on the very odd, special occasion and then a small portion. The body gets used to it and it becomes easy. I started a 10 minute run most days. I walk if I can rather than car and I walk fast.
It just drops off and you feel much better.
It wasn't that I had an unhealthy diet before, it just wasn't quite as good and I didn't exercise much.
Even thunderbolts must want healthy weight DCs-surely? I would like to know how someone gets a DC on a healthy lifestyle if they are on an unhealthy one and how they keep the DC there when they have left home-or are you quite happy to eventually produce another obese adult?

Even before I changed my eating habits I couldn't physically eat a whole packet of biscuits at once.

I knew a girl with anorexia-she only recovered when she had heart problems, frightened herself and admitted she had a problem.You can't get help if you are in denial that you need it.

Kind of scanned the thread and won't be getting involved in the fat/thin bashing or denial discussions but I do need to make this point quite strongly for people who are in the same high BMI camp - as I am myself.

It isn't nice being faced with your own failure as a human - being fat is seen as a failure when the only support you get is from a leaflet pointing out all the general statistics leading to your or your babies death. As has been pointed out statistics may very well show an underlying truth. Therefore us tubbies should listen and heed - but then what do you do?

My answer - you question the facts and relate them to you as an individual.

Let's take shoulder dystocia - statistically high in obese women. Numerous papers "prove" this.

Now let's question that...

Where were these studies mostly conducted. The US. Does the US have an increase risk of shoulder dystocia than the UK - why yes it does.

So what else can we learn about shoulder dystocia. Well there is an increase in the occurence if a woman labours on her back (as is more common in the US than the UK).

So what conclusion can you draw (which is now supported by Ina May paper) labour on all fours less shoulder dystocia. So what policy makes sense for larger women - is it the strapped to the bed on your back with constant monitoring employed by the NHS? Doesn't shoulder dystocia become a higher risk for the obese due part to sub-optimal labouring position imposed by general policy?

That is what people centred care is about! While the research into women's care is patchy at best (regardless of size) we need to educate ourselves and question the full picture. Do you know the best place for obese women to birth - in water. What is the policy in the NHS - no water birth as you are heavy to fish out should anything go wrong. What is better minimising risks at the cost of some other risks?

I have never eaten a whole pack of biscuits, I don't want to. Just like I would not eat a whole bottle of ketchup, a whole loaf of bread or drink a bottle of vodka. The sort of thing I would eat the whole of are intended to be eaten that way, like a whole yoghurt, or a apple, or a whole fairy cake.

Apart from anything else, if I did eat all the biscuits, what would the rest of the 5 people in the house think when they wanted one? Or would I buy 6 packs a day, in case anyone wanted to eat them all? That would make for a large food bill.

I don't buy lots of junk partly to keep the food bill down. When I shop I think in terms of meals for the week, including pudding. How can people afford to eat fast food on normal incomes? If I bought all of my family McDs it would cost around £24 (probably wrong there aren't any near us) for 5 adult meals with drinks and one child's meal. A huge bag of frozen chicken pieces is only £4 and will feed us all. Fizzy drinks seem like the biggest waste of money and I don't see the point of them at all, they should be taxed heavily imo.

I think that many of you are nasty pieces of work. If I see someone who is genuinely ill, mentally or physically, then I react with sensitivity and compassion. Not finding them in the wrong because they are ill, with telling them that because they are ill they might die or be in pain, or instruct them to sort themselves to get better. Would you also say to a depressed person, just pull yourself together?

Just because it is simple, logical or possible to you to maintain a healthy weight, doesn't mean it is for everyone. Stop being so judgemental.

ditziness being overweight or obese isn't the same as being ill.

And as an overweight person myself, your sort of attitude was the last thing I needed. I needed someone to point out that my weight and my health was under my control and it w3as up to me to do something about it.

YABU.

If you dont get probelms whilst pg you will as an oap.

A lot of older obese people dont class BP as an illness so class themselves as healthy. They are not.

Which is why I am slim. I am not ending up like my patients.

Fantastc for you fatlaztmummy. I remember feeling like you're feeling in the past when I've managed to take control of my weight. I genuinely hope for you it's forever.

Yes it's possible to lose weight and maintain a healthy weight. For some. For others it's more difficult and complicated.

I definitely think obesity is a mental health problem. I think it's ridiculous to think it isn't.

It's already been stated on here that maintaining a healthy body is hard work. It is difficult and it requires commitment.

It really gets my goat that people think slim people are just like that, with no effort at all.