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?

My mum mentions where I work, adding that she can't tell anyone what I do because she doesn't understand 'it's very sensitive' if she thinks it'll get her better treatment.

I'm allergic to cows milk, apparently I should eat loads to get my body used to it.

Apparently the 28 years I wasn't allergic wasn't sufficient time.

Person who told me has the same HCP degree as me.

Ponderland - your dad has made me laugh out loud.

Top thread. I'm getting an onion potato and soap right now.

Loads luck with baby Cherry no matter if you have it in 5* luxury with chocolates on pillow or in the corridor waiting for room to come free.

I hate fish. Hate it. Would starve rather than eat it it and have been the same for the last 40 odd years.

My mum still keeps coming up with 'ooh just try a bit of kipper, you'll love it'.

No I fucking won't. I keep trying fish, I want to like fish, but I can guarantee you kipper isn't going to be the one to change my mind!

Mamatallica she's almost right. If you mix icing sugar with baking soda and put it down for ants, they carry down into the nest and feed it to the others/the Queen. Apparently it makes them explode.

I'm sure proper ant powder i more effective but we tried this when we had little children around and an ant problem.

My mum & gran say If you are out having a cup of tea/coffee you should drink out of the spot just over the handle as you are less likely to catch germs / coldsore etc, as less likely that someone has drunk out of that spot before! Conversely you are more likely to spill a hot drink down yourself.

Someone I know had a recent poor experience in A+E. She was told afterwards that she would have been looked after if she had mentioned that she worked in the hospital.
Bit depressing that this is the way to get preferential treatment in a crumbling health service. I know that's not the point of your thread op, but it sounds like if you mention you work there you will receive a better service.

My friend's DM maintains that wearing knickers to bed is what causes cellulite. Apparently she never does and has been cellulite free all her life, so that must be the cause...

I try ed the soap under the sheets one because I get terrible cramp in my feet and legs at night. IT BLOODY WORKS! No cramp at night for the last 2 months until this week when I forgot to put the soap back after changing the sheets.

It's mad and I don't understand why. Maybe something to donwith magnesium.

Eyre maybe my antecedents were more likely to have access to a potato than to naice soap!
In regard to the original question, when I was working in hospital, we did try to give staff a single room, based on the premise that they might have to be moved if someone else needed it. And I was given a single room on the three occasions I needed to be admitted. But it was a long time ago.

soap under the sheets

I presume unwrapped - which brand do you use? I might get DH to try it!

idontlikealdi your mum and my mum would get on great. I, like you have detested fish for over 40 years but my mum still offers it to me if I'm at her house at tea time. She seems serious but maybe she's just taking the piss.

Idont - I should think the fish least likely to give you a sudden taste for the stuff is a kipper!

Like my nan's 'finny haddock balt in milk, mash made with milk' - bright yellow 'finnon' smoked haddock, boiled to death in milk. And then use that milk to mash the potatoes with. Bleurgggggggghhhhhhh.

I got put in a side room with DD on the basis that I was staff, on the understanding that I was out the second someone in actual clinical need (infection, baby in neonates etc.) needed it. I had it for 3 hours then got booted out into a bay, was bliss while it lasted.

Blatherskite that's interesting, I've not heard that one. Maybe that's what the neighbour meant and MIL got the wrong end of the stick, she's not the brightest spark. MIL was just putting granulated sugar down, she had ants coming from half the county to join the party, DH and I were pissing ourselves!

When I was expecting DC1, my MIL (who was lovely - but a little, err, strange...) assured me that if I did as she had when expecting DH, and drank some liquid paraffin every day I'd have an easy labour, because "The baby will just slip out"...!!!
I never had the courage to ask where she thought the digestive and reproductive tracts met...!

I was told to scrub my nipples with my toothbrush whilst pregnant to toughen them up for breastfeeding. I didn't.

(I have been told to take a spoonful of vinegar before bed to prevent cramp, also quinine. I'm currently trying to drink a herbal tea of some kind last thing in case it is caused by dehydration, and this seems to work better than a gherkin or tonic water. Could the soap thing work by keeping the sheet off the legs/feet so muscles don't tense? Endless research during crampy times suggests no one really knows what causes it, unless it is a side effect of medication.)

You were lucky, my dm is a nurse, she had her first chemo got sepsis and was put onto a ward with a patient with dv, luckily she was sorted out at another hospital

My grandmother was CONVINCED that debit cards were the root of all evil because on one occasion my mother had some fraud on her account

Consequently, she would carry around hundreds of pounds in cash at all all times and only use cheques, as to her it was much safer.

When my DS was 4 he was horribly constipated and in awful pain. My dear nutty Nan advised me to do as she did with DF: sharpen a bar of soap and put it up DS bum, rotating clockwise etc to loosen it all up. Oddly enough I declined.

On the day of my first marriage, as a very young woman, my mum advised me to keep old toothbrushes to clean around the taps! I desperately wanted her to tell me to call it off and run for the hils... I really admire people who have the courage to change their mind 'at the alter' and save some heartache in the future

I didn't get put in a side room on the basis I was staff , even though I had a Emergency GA CS , that was fine , nor did I get put in side room because I was staff when my newborn DS was whisked back to the special care baby unit and I was left baby less , also fine , did get put in a side room when I vommited all over the ward , who knew that partially digested food was the key .

Many years ago my dear departed gran told me off for washing my hair when I had my period! Apparently this was very dangerous back in her day.

My mother wouldn't let meow my sisters wash our hair at our "curse time" either.

Most bizarre was from my MIL when I was pg. You need more iron so stick a rusty nail into an apple. The apple will absorb the iron from the nail and I can eat it. The apple I presumed, not the nail.

If you've got a sore throat, wrap a used sock around it then bury the sock in the garden.

That's quality advice, that is.