AIBU to be unsure about pregnancy forums?

[Rachtoteach]

I know they are a great support to some people, and I have found support in them too at times. I am 11 weeks pregnant at the moment but due to my regular visits to a particular forum i now know everything there is to know about what COULD or MIGHT go wrong and, if i'm honest, it's really taken away some of the joy of my pregnancy as Im freaking out about everything. With my first two children I did not go on the boards and found that ignorance was bliss and I was very very lucky to have had two healthy children (I have also had 3 mc so am not totally naive). Thanks to my visits on the board I am now worried about miscarriage, missed miscarriage, threatened miscarriage (Ive had spotting), high risk NT results, something wrong at 20 weeks scan, still birth - the list goes on! And yes I can choose not to read, which I will do from now on, but the info is all in my head now, ggrrr! What do you think?

Well presumably those threads are there because other women HAVE suffered those problems, and are looking for support, so YABU if you nobody should talk about those things.

I think it's easier to absorb the bad things than it is to absorb the good.

Good things tend to leave our memory and bad things tend to stay.

All in all I'd guess there are far, far, far more healthy pregnancies resulting in safe, healthy births than not.

But I understand why you've decided to stay away from forums like that.

I know what you mean, pregnancy is an anxious time and reading about all the things that can go wrong can feed your paranoia. But I think it can also be good to be informed, as long as you bear in mind that the odds of things going wrong are usually low and the number of posters posting about the bad stuff is often disproportionately high because they are the posters that need most support, iyswim.

I'm guessing you're due in October? There's a 'Due in Oct 2012' thread in Antenatal Clubs on here, lots of lovely supportive posters to chat to about your pregnancy :)

I think YANBU. They give a distorted picture. That's nobody's fault and certainly not the fault of people using them.

But I've lost count of the number of friends who have a pregnancy freak out related to talk boards. Most often at 30+ weeks when mc fears have subsided and people become convinced they will be torn to shreds by labour.

I'm sorry you've had a hard time, but I'm also a worrier (and a a half-frantic older first-timer, within a few days of my due date) and I'm happier being informed, given the choice. I've found the MN pregnancy and childbirth forums an absolute godsend in terms of linking to research and stats on various issues, and a really kind and selfless source of support and information.

I only discovered these types of forums (previously didn't use forums at all) when I was going through a mc so my next pg was already strewn with stress and worry but the talk group I used was particularly for those pg after miscarriage - poss as it kept it off the main boards, by 20 weeks I used the 2nd tri and then the 3rd tri boards and there was far less of this worrying going on as a majority of losses occur in 1st tri so there were frequently people finding out the worst had happened in those forums - unlike the later boards.

I found it all very supportive but was coming at it from a different pov - if it is stressing you out then stay away for a bit....

They're like wedding forums, make you far too obsessed with the whole bloody thing. Just get on with it.

(I don't mean women who need support for specific issues nad concerns)

I agree partly - my first pregnancy was identical twins, and as supportive and helpful as twins and pregnancy forums are, I found out a lot of information and read a lot of stories that simply terrified me. I remember when we had a TTTS diagnosis (thankfully very mild) I spent a whole day researching it online, then spent the next day in bed, thinking my babies were going to die and I would be alone as the doc would have to send me to another hospital far away to have an operation.

Pregnancy in the age of Google can be far too informed.

keep well well well away x

I ended up asking my mum for a subscription to the online BMJ so I could 'asses the evidence myself and keep up to date'. At this point she stepped in.

Well, we all have the choice what we read and participate in online.

But it makes me incandescently fuming when women are flamed or banned from pregnancy forums because they're having life-threatening complications, expecting seriously disabled babies or needing to make heartbreaking moral choices. Certainly, even women with straightforward pregnancies do tend to be hormonal and anxius. But it's the women with the most difficult pregnancies who surely deserve the most support.

Breastmilk, nobody is banning or flaming anyone! My heart goes out to those who are suffering complications, I think you have misunderstood me perhaps. I fully agree there should be support readily available for these women. I just feel I dont want to 'borrow trouble' or live my life governed by what ifs. Maybe I should save my worry and angst for a time when something bad is ACTUALLY happening to me, iyswim, not worry about what might happen (as it probably wont).

You are being unreasonable... BUT I totally know what you mean!

I am an information junkie, I admit it, and read around the ttc thread while ttc-ing. I like the feeling of being in likeminded company and some of the threads are very witty. However, the amount of sadness and mc has made me completely paranoid this time around about why that won't be me in a couple of months. I am so used to reading 'I had a mmc in dec' etc that I am almost waiting to write those words myself!

it is ridiculous and means that you and I should stay away and keep sane by gaining info elsewhere, and let other people who aren't as sensitive/are in need use them!

Doesn't mean I haven't joined the antenatal thread though...

such a dumbass :)

YANBU. I left an antenatal forum (not on MN btw) for other reasons though, mostly because one one know it all Mother of eight, who continually got on my tits harping on and on about how awful her pregnancy was, well, why do it eight times then fucksake

I get where your coming from at your stage of pregnancy last time round, it almost felt like even the threads about the most innocent sounding of problems would have someone saying 'yes I also had a sore left big toe and then I had a miscarriage' (totally made up problem used only to exagerate how it seemed to me at the time rather than offend anyone). I almost felt like women who were having miscarriages shouldn't be allowed to post on a pregnancy forum they should go somewhere else where they wouldn't upset me .

However, once I'd gotten over myself I realised I was being ridiculously self-absorbed. I stopped reading until well after my first scan and then came to realise what a great resource the Mumsnet pregnancy forum is for women, sometimes their partners and their friends and family, to go to get support when they needed it most, from people who have been through the same thing. It was great to know there was somewhere I could turn to for support when it was needed

I agree that googling anything/looking on a forum generally makes you more worried than when you started and sometimes ignorance is indeed bliss.

I would say though that I had a bleed in my current pregnancy at 7 weeks and as far as I knew back then having not been pregnant before blood + pregnancy = miscarriage. Not the case it would appear, when I looked in the forums of course there were plenty about miscarriage but also much to my delight (as such) plenty of women were bleeding and going on to have healthy babies, it actually gave me a little hope whilst waiting for the scan to confirm what was happening. I am currently 20 weeks so all was fine BTW.

I think that the forums can offer a wealth of information to women who may not neccessarily have friends that are or have been pg or don't have a decent support network in which to ask questions.

Sometimes equally it's nice to know you're not the only one being kicked in the cervix, weeing yourself when you cough (or sometimes just randomly) or have developed a rather strange craving for peeled green apples.

Not on MN, no. I should have been clearer that I've only ever seen in happen on other, usually, pregnancy-specific forums.

YANBU, I avoided the fertility friends website for a couple of months each time I was going through treatment as I assumed that anything bad would also happen to me.

Didnt go near the pregnancy ones for nine months as I really did think I would worry if I heard any stories (the pregnancy books were bad enough!).

Thats not to say that they dont help a lot of people. I think its just if you are the sort of person who dwells on the bad stuff (as I do), they are probably best avoided.