Scalded for drinking alcohol by a stranger

[Boilin]

Went to Wetherspoons (I'm still there) with DP. I'm 28 weeks pregnant at the moment and had half a pint of cider with my meal. The woman who served it to me had no issue with it whatsoever, but the man stood next to me (not sure if he was slightly drunk) felt it appropriate to tell my DP that 'that won't be good for her or the baby' (hello I'm stood right here ). DP told him, 'it's fine' and told me to ignore him and the bloke then continued to discuss under his breath with his partner/friend my choice to have a drink.

AIBU to think he had no right? To think that it's fine that I had half a pint once in a blue moon? To feel pissed off with the constant judgement of my ever move since I've been pregnant?

Ugh. I've just had enough of today! Sorry for moaning...

@Savannah

Does your midwife know the true extent of your anxiety? Because not leaving the house other than for nessesity isn't normal? Waking at night to "check on your partner" isn't normal behaviour If you are both anxious that could be a dangerous mix, has your OH spoken to anyone about how anxious he is? You both sound exhausting from the outside so I imagine the mental and physical strain of the actions you are describing is probably going to take its toll long term.

You are probably both young parents to be, and as such haven't matured enough, which is clear to see from the posts. I hope you both receive additional support and help as from the snapshot that is being conveyed via your posts it's probably needed.

You need to divulge in full what you and your partner are up to, because it isn't normal behaviour.

@Holyguacamoley (and other who made similar comments) are you honestly saying you don't see the difference between having half a pint of cider in pregnancy and feeding alcohol to a newborn??

I wont be feeding my baby sips of anything other than formula/breastmilk when they arrive, that doesn't mean I should be surviving off Aptamil myself during my pregnancy

If it means judgy people saying I'm OTT anxious for wanting a healthy baby, and to never ever have to suffer a loss again, then I'm willing to take that

There isn’t really a way to say this gently but you do realise that none of your behaviours would necessarily prevent you miscarrying again?

And as someone else said it’s not about being judgy but trying to get you to understand that this level of anxiety is not only not normal but not likely to be of any benefit to you or the baby whatsoever.

@SavanahXx I agree that your behaviour doesn’t sound just like normal precautions. Ive no doubt your anxiety is triggered by pregnancy, all I’m saying is that it probably ain’t going to magically disappear after birth because you will then have a baby to worry about. There is no other time that’s so anxiety inducing as having a new baby and you will face many hurdles. So please be honest with your HV or midwife, and they should be able to judge if it’s out of control. It does sound like a potentially troublesome mix if your partner is also struggling with anxiety too.

I haven’t read the whole of this thread, but I would definitely be shocked to see a pregnant woman drinking alcohol! It’s only 40 weeks, I cannot imagine taking any risk for the sake of an alcoholic beverage. You may wish to drink but lots of people will be judging you for this - even though most people would never say anything to you. If you’re not bothered about what people say/ think then don’t worry about it.

so me, my midwife and the consultant must be all wrong, because we all seem to think I'm just being extremely cautious? the most my midwife has said is "stop being an apologetic person" ive had anxiety all my life, since what happened to me as a child, and @Boilin I've also had to have CBT and quite a few other forms of therapy, from being 6/7. but again, non of that links to why I'm so cautious.

and fyi my baths are not 'cold' they are just warm, pretty much cold considering I'm usually the type of person who has a unnecessarily hot bath. and I never really went out unless I needed to before I was pregnant, again, anxiety.

I think I know the difference between a pregnancy related anxiety and an anxiety I've lived with since being a child.

Btw, now that we're talking about this... How bad are raw eggs?

Because my mother makes delicious tiramisu... She didn't think the eggs were a problem. (Her whole batch also contains 5 tea spoons of Marsala but that's that's less than than half a tea spoon per portion so I wasn't worried about that...)

I remember when ds was about 7 months old and we were planning a blow out meal with lots of very good wine (the really good stuff that I had refused to let dh open on the basis that I wanted more than a small glass of it ) with every course (can't remember what it was for the first course, but Grange with the main course and Chateau d'Yquem for the dessert and good bubbly to start: the wines we didn't have when we were telling my parents I was pregnant). Ds was still fully breastfed (breastfed him for 13 months ) but as I'd been back at work since he was 4 months old, was used to expressing.

Rang my GP friends and asked for advice on the expressing. Should I "pump and dump"? Best friend's dh (himself a GP) said that the amount of alcohol that crossed into breast milk was minuscule and that if it had any effect on a healthy 7 month old baby which he didn't think it would , who was also eating solids, it might , just might make ds slightly sleepy. "And my problem with that was.....???"

So I expressed that night, froze it, labelled "alcoholic", and gave it to ds a few months later at a time when, if it were to have the effect of making him sleepy, would have been helpful it made no noticeable difference

Ds, now 17, hasn't turned into an alcoholic, despite living in a house where his parents enjoy wine and his dad holds a personal liquor licence! Ds is also very good at analysing relative risks and formulating cohesive arguments (Although like other teenagers examples of which are on this thread he has a tendency to see things in black and white but he'll soon learn how important shades of grey are once he goes to Uni and starts studying philosophy & politics )

People aren’t telling you off for having anxiety, Savannah. They are encouraging you to get help with it, because it isn’t good for you and is likely to get even worse once the baby’s here. Lots of us have been through this and would like other people to avoid it.

What are you doing differently this time Savanah to the pregnancies where you sadly suffered losses, if this is the way you’ve always behaved? Genuinely what do you think is different this time?

It’s a bit sad you won’t even take a little bit of guidance from the women on here who it’s fair to say are not just “older and wiser” but considerably more intelligent than you seem to be, but hey it’s your life. :)

Savanah - I wrote a post to you last night which I hoped would have been helpful - it was about parenting and how you (I) learn from others all the way along - from pregnancy to coping with a teenager.

I am really sorry that your anxiety is so strong that you are shifting your world around to accommodate it.

No-one on here is "judging" you for being anxious. Indeed it is noticeable how much you talk about "oldies" "judging" - I wonder if this is part of your anxiety - do you feel in any way that you have been judged for your previous MCs? Because that is absolutely not on and if anyone has said anything that you have taken to be judgemental regarding your previous pregnancies then you should obliterate it from your mind.

I think people on here - many. of whom come from a place of experience of miscarriage or still birth and/or anxiety and depression are trying to gently suggest that continuing down this path of hyper anxiety will do you no good. Have you had any sort of counselling?

And the reality is - just as we've been talking about risk throughout this thread - you can eliminate all the risks you think you can, but if in so doing you cut yourself off from life and the world - is that healthy?

Furthermore, you can feel like you've eliminated all the risks possible but that alone doesn't and won't ensure a healthy pregnancy and healthy baby.

I'm obviously not suggesting you spend your pregnancy necking vodka, smothered in pate whilst skateboarding through motorway traffic... BUT sometimes with all the precautions in the world, things just don't go to plan.

for your pregnancy and baby and for a healthier less anxious you

Agree with all the above and savannah you will need mum friends to support you snd for you to support them too after baby is born so you will need to dial down both your anxiety and your belief that you are right all the time and if other mums do things differently to you that’s absolutely normal and equally valid.

Dial it all down love.

so me my midwife and the consultant must all be wrong

Again black and white. No they are not all wrong or all right nothing ever is. They are supporting you quite rightly but I don’t think they may realise the anxiety level you have or they are monitoring you and I hope that’s the case.

I don’t mean they are critical but you sound like fit need a lot of support and I hope you get it.

I'm struggling to understand how the thread has gone from someone's drinking to my anxiety lmao.
I think I'm fine, and I know that I have a healthy baby kicking and rolling about inside of me.
I've minimised risks to my unborn baby, and id recommend that other people also put minimal risk onto their unborn babies too.
its really not fair to only think of yourself while pregnant.

Just to add my two cents on anxious pregnancies (although, full disclosure, I’m not actually an anxiety sufferer).

I was quite cautious when pregnant with dc1. I was actually quite weird about listeriosis; quizzing my poor dh on how hot the pizza was when it came out of the oven, buying an industrial sized bottle of chemical wash for fruit and veg . Seriously? That stuff was probably way more harmful than the fruit I was washing it in! Hypnobirthing and NCT classes, pregnancy yoga blah blah blah.

Anyway, I had a quite difficult birth with dc1 and she came out not breathing with a very low apgar score. We both ended up seriously ill with a week long stay in hospital after being sent home, (too soon imo), just to end up being readmitted and not at all well. We weren’t even allowed to stay in the same ward as we were both too poorly, so bfing went up the spout, which was quite upsetting for me, (although we did manage to mix feed for a good while after we left hospital the second time). Thankfully we both recovered with no lasting problems. But I definitely get the utter injustice I felt over how I’d done everything right in pregnancy and how unfair it was that we’d had these problems. And I know there are far worse things happening to mums and babies than what we had. But, I’d also lost my mum, quite suddenly, a year earlier and I felt just pretty furious with the universe tbh. It wasn’t healthy at all. So I can see where people are coming from, saying how going too far to minimise risk is actually a false friend / security blanket.

Totally digressing from the op here, so sorry if it’s a bit irrelevant. Just sharing my experience.

@apriljune12 if you lived in my area, you wouldn't be saying you need mum friends, the people around where I live don't exactly have children because they want a baby the last thing I would be doing is having a mum friend from around here hahaha, I have plenty of support from OH's family, and I'm quite happy with that

'm struggling to understand how the thread has gone from someone's drinking to my anxiety lmao.

Oh ok. Ignore my last post then and go back to laughing your ass off I guess !

It sounds like you’re already on the case with discussing your history of anxiety with your HCPs now you’re pregnant following MCs. If they’re in the loop and happy and you’re happy too, then that’s great.

I simply just can't get my head round some of the arguments people try to use to guilt women in to thinking they are harming their baby

Are pregnant women given a pass on accepting science-based advice on the basis that this is 'guilting', and 'guilting' someone into doing something or not doing it in order to avoid risk to someone else is unacceptable manipulation?

In a culture where binge drinking and use of recreational drugs has become a normal part of leisure, of letting your hair down, is your perception of what is reasonable as far as self control goes perhaps a bit clouded?

It is entirely possible that a teenager may in fact have a better grip on what is normal and reasonable when it comes to a relationship with alcohol than women in their 30s or 40s have.
mosaicscience.com/story/peak-booze/
'How we became the heaviest drinkers in a century'

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/drugusealcoholandsmoking/bulletins/opinionsandlifestylesurveyadultdrinkinghabitsingreatbritain/2017

Savanah Can you really tell the difference between anxiety and pregnancy related anxiety? Because there isn't really a difference unless you've never suffered from anxiety. I'm not going to teach you how to suck eggs here, but you know as well as many what anxiety is like to live with. When you're pregnant, it doesn't suddenly change. The levels creep up. Your brain hardly registers it and soon, every day, normal activities seen equivalent to doing a sky dive...but to you, that seems perfectly reasonable!
Speaking as someone who has always suffered anxiety, I never realised how far it went while I was pregnant and even the first year of DSs life. If I saw someone walking towards me down the street, I would 'live out' them trying to hurt or take my baby. I broke down once in a petrol station because DS was asleep and I wanted to pay for petrol. I was convinced if I left him, he would die, but if I took him out, I'd have ruined his routine and therefore, his life.

@SoirseTheSeahorse ive only just seen your post? it was put after mine? your experience sounds awful.
and I wouldn't say I have OTT anxiety when everything I do is recommended stuff anyway "don't have hot baths. lie on your left side because the oxygen flow to the baby is better etc etc" I stick to what's recommended to have the better outcome for my baby, so please stop making this thread about my "anxiety" when it should be about the drinking while pregnant

If you wouldn't give a newborn baby a sip of an alcoholic drink then you shouldn't drink any alcohol in pregnancy

By this logic I can only drink breastmilk while I’m pregnant.

It’s fone to have an opinion
This man wanted to voice that opinion

It’s fine to tell him that if he’s going to openly judge others don’t be surprised when he gets judged for his own actions and him being drunk and disorderly is still a crime he can be arrested fir

Savannah your posts crack me up you sound about 10