to ask for the most bizarre advice you've been given after this gem from my mum (lighthearted)

[CherryChasingDotMuncher]

I'm due baby no 2 in 5 weeks, I work in the hospital I'm giving birth in, and my mum also used to work there about 10 years ago.

I work closely with the chief executive in my job and am in the office next door. My mum has told me that when I go in to give birth, to get "star treatment" and a room of my own in postnatal, I should tell them that I work next door to the chief exec and they will give me what I want.

I actually giggled as I could imagine just how obnoxious I'd sound rolling in mid-contraction and saying "I work with the chief exec you know. What you gonna do with that information?" And then having midwives flocking round giving me pedicures and the like

She is adamant she's right! I joked that he's universally disliked to they'd probably put me in the corridor if anything! Even if I did have the brass neck to say this, I really would rather a side room go to a woman who needs one, and although I'm a high-risk birth it probably wouldn't be me! I'd rather have one on the premise of actually needing one, not because of who I "know".

It inspired me to ask the members of MN for the most bizarre advice you've been given?

Aim what you like, pigsDOfly . Your experience may have been different to mine, but I'm not in the habit of lying

Good grief I wasn't accusing you of lying Daisymaybe60, why would I do that I don't know you?

I was just surprised that any hospital would have done that in the 80s and was just giving my experiences. I imagine you were probably in a different park of the country from me. My children were all born in a large London teaching hospital so things were probably not the same as in some other parts of the country.

Daisy my mum recounts the story of the woman beside her when I was born in 1985. Baby cradled in one arm, cigarette hanging out of her mouth, and using her other hand to brush ash off the baby's head. The baby kept going blue and having to be taken away to give him oxygen and they couldn't figure out why... :(

Well, I'm Northern, pigsDOfly. We're a different breed

I guess you might be too, Foggymist?

Clearly I've offended you Daisymaybe60 and I truly didn't mean to do that or imply you were lying, so I'm sorry.

I just found this gem on another thread:

I think they result from iron overload in children. The body allows this iron to oxidise as either hematite Fe2o3 or magnetite Fe3o4. The combination forms magnetite chains which are ferromagnetic and align with the Earths magnetic field and lie in the blood facing north-south. therefore in the arteries and veins of arms and legs if you face east west at night they may readily strike nerves causing discomfort. This maybe better for your feet. Try turning the bed through 90 degrees if possible

When I was a young girl my Nan told me off for looking into the mirror told me if I looked too long the devil would appear. I'm now in my forties. I still hate mirrors and can't look in one at night time even though I know it's a pile of shit!

NHS premises did not go smoke free until May 1993.
Until 2010, blood donors in Ireland were provided with a pint of guinness

My mum used to say that if I stroked the sides of my nose with my thumb and forefinger it would make the nose narrower. (My nose is perfectly normal!) Where she got this from I have no idea. She also agreed with the cold steps causing piles one.

graphista my mum just opened an entirely new bank account for online shopping so that if the thieves come in the night she won't get cleared out

On a similar tip, she was watching someone kick off at bank staff a while ago and said to poor cashier 'I've been with NatWest 40 years and will gladly vouch for you'. what does bank loyalty have to do with anything?! Very strange.

You were probably allowed to smoke in the day room in the 80s but certainly not on any ward I was ever on.

Bank loyalty used to matter. There was a time when the bank manager would know many customers, and their opinion of you did matter.

brasty my DM isn't exactly the type to pull rank, though, she's meant to be a socialist

No, I'm not offended at all, pigsDOfly! Sorry, I just misread your earlier post. Probably the effects of all that Guinness....

DMum advised that wiping DD1's head with her wet nappy would cure her cradle cap. I didn't try it - I preferred the olive oil approach suggested by my HV

Urea is a highly valued ingredient in skin products, I have a foot cream with urea in it that is the only cream that stops the dry skin on my feet from cracking painfully. Olive oil mainly just acts as a barrier and doesn't actually fix existing problems. Again that suggestion has a scientific logic.

urea for skin complaints, it's an actual thing

AFAIK hospitals went 100% smoke free about a decade-ish ago and quickly revoked it because of the amount of "arson" (i.e. fires starting all over hospitals from smoking patients hiding cigs under sheets and in cupboards/linen closets), or worse, hiding in store rooms where flamable gas was stored. So many fires were started this way when the blanket smoking bans rolled out that now almost all provide on site smoking areas.

None of my local hospitals remained 100% smoke free for this reason. The maternity unit I was on in 2008 had an adjoining covered smoking area (outside-ish).

When my twins were born in 1994 I had to go and stand on a very cold balcony to have a fag. It was December.

I sat on the floor in a museum in Russia and the manager told me to get up because "sitting on stone floors there will stop me being able to have babies"

DD2 was born in '97, there was definitely a smoking room on the antenatal floor; and in '93, when I had DD1 and was in hospital with PE the last week or so, I had a bottle of Baileys in the fridge, and we used to a have a little glass every night before we went to sleep. Consultant knew, and was of the opinion that if it relaxed us and kept us poor cooped up long termers happy (I'd spent most of the pregnancy stuck in hospital with hideous hyperemesis) it was a Good Thing. Same with smoking, friend was told it would be more harmful to stop her 5 a day habit and raise her stress levels, than to smoke. Can't imagine that being said today.

Bank loyalty was indeed a thing. I knew people who would only ever get served by a particular person in a bank. When that person was promoted and worked in a back office instead of at the counter, he would still go the counter when certain customers asked for him. He continued to do this throughout various promotions until he retired.

That was during a time when working in a bank was seen as a 'good job'. Now it is like working in a shop or any other job in the service industry.

I got a RIDICULOUSLY good APR for my first credit card because my parents had always used the same bank and were very loyal to the bank manager there. It used to matter, even fairly recently. Working in a bank was a great lifelong career and branch staff had a good degree of autonomy, now it's a pretty shitty service job!

Daisy I'm Irish, and not Dublin based so that makes us very backwards altogether compared to a London teaching hospital! So there was definitely still plenty of smoking going on in maternity wards until the 90's.

If you hang out your washing on new year's eve, the wild hunt will come and steal your knickers. Fact.