What's the stupidest advice/comments you have received about pregnancy or childrearing

[Garliccheesechips]

Sorry if this has been done lots of times before (had a search to no avail) but I'm wondering if anyone had encountered jaw-droppingly ridiculous advice from medics/family/friends/colleagues etc when they were up the duff?

A (slightly batty and worryingly skinny) colleague told me that throwing up was a great way to lose the baby weight postpartum so long as you don't 'rely on it too much'.

I was an nhs podiatrist for 10 years and I can tell you hvare universially disliked by most hcp.

Tbh a lot of nurses are a bit dim too (prepares to be flamed). Honestly you have to see it to believe it.

Whatever hcp's tell you is just advice it's not the law.

When I was just pregnant, my mum said to me each time we spoke "are you still pregnant? are you ok?" As if she was expecting me lose DD. After a few times I said it was offensive & not to say it anymore please. She said well its really early still isn't it & its just one of those things people say isn't it? errr no, it isn't actually.

liz my mum did a similar thing. We decided to find out sex at 20wk scan, and knowing me/DH I knew we'd name her. So we did. Mum then did the whole "it's bad luck to name baby" thing (including tellign me not to sign xmas cards even from "bump" [even thought I'd be 35wks sending out cards] as how would that make peopel feel if something was to go wrong...), and then continues to call her "baby", unless I needed a bit of emotional balackmailing about something, in which case, LO gets called by her name. Mega-frustrating.

boonasera

I am still feeling sick! I live next to a farm (mainly cattle and sheep) and every time I see a cow wandering along I think about the colostrum now. Think I may have PTSD!

the only thing i can think of that is almost as yuck as this is my friends MIL telling her to rub her son's wee into his eczema to cure it?!! still not a patch on your SIL!

bounasera even, sorry!

or buonasera...jeepers creepers I'm a numpty today!

Hmm remember something we were told by a mw but my isn't towards her rather my DH. We were joking about getting wee'd on and mw said 'well at least it's sterile'. As such for weeks after whenever DH changed DS's wet nappy he wouldn't bother to wipe him! Just left him with stale urine on his poor bottom. He reckoned he didn't need to because 'the mw said..' but come on, common sense didn't need to go completely out the window!

wheresmy... you could be making good money off that stuff. My SIL sells it as some sort of alternative health supplement thing. I kid you not.

Most of the dietary stuff (minimised liver and stuck to the occasional glass of wine; but all the stuff about cheese and rare meat etc. is nonsense)
Everything the HV ever said

I have a whole book of (mostly) bonkers advice - it was the one my mum had and dates from 1958. One of my favourites is, apparently, the ideal first weaning food (at 3 months) is 'the juice from the roast'. Also, you really are being an irresponsible mother if you don't leave your baby outside in the garden for hours every day in all weathers (except fog).

It just made me think there's quite a big margin for error with this parenting carry-on...

tracy, that's what my mum was saying! And you're supposed to get on with the housework while they're out there. But watch out for cats.

I could kind of see it when I was a littler - we lived in a tenement block and the drying area at the back was the tarred roofs of the shops below, it was fenced off and there was a ready supply of neighbours to keep an eye out including the large Italian family who ran the chip shop downstairs (hence my dad's lifelong habit of calling me "the bambino"). But I live in the suburbs. In 2012. It's not the same.

Lol or what? The thing your hilarious examples have in common is the obvious loony factor - I remember trying not to smile when idiots said things like this. But then my Mum was a health visitor and I grew up knowing about babies. I firmly believe that the word 'ADVICE' has little use - it is really about sharing our individual experience to help someone decide what they are going to do or try. All this talk that assumes things are black or white, right or wrong is ridiculous to anyone who has experienced the vaguaries of children at every stage. In the immortal words of Life of Brian - Yes we are all different! Try something that seems to make sense and if it doesn't work try something else - I do hope that the old generation element of ignorant malice is dying out now...

wise words all4u

buonasera...can you imagine me creeping into the cow shed and stealing a job lot of colostrum away from those newborn calves?! Seriously though, it makes me a bit sad for the mother and baby cows...doesn't seem like ethical farming getting on my high horse!

wheres, you'd never make a dairy farmer! All the wee bullocks are for the chop anyway...

I have been asked again, for the umpteenth time by the same person if my bag us packed. Yes, it is still packed, just like it was before Xmas. Do you want to come over and inspect it?! Grrrr.

Same person also said the more you push the less it hurts.

This is a bit off the topic, but still stupid comments from the parentals. The night before my wedding my father said, you just need to get the first marriage out the way because the 2nd marriage is the lasting one (yes he is divorced from my mum and remarried) What kind of moron says that to a bride-to-be on the night before her wedding. I've never forgotten it. and BTW dear daddy, this year will be the 21st anniversary of my DH and my FIRST marriage.

maybe we just stayed married to prove him wrong

2 weeks after giving birth to my first baby my doctor insisted I have a smear test...yeah really nice...stitches had just come out....

actually not advice but at my initial booking with the midwife she asked about any heredity illnesses in the family and I mentioned my niece has Lissencephaly and died aged 6. Oh she says so it wasn't severe then...um yes I said i would say severe SHE DIED AGED 6!!!

I was told by a consultant at 15 weeks that I shouldn't eat for two as it's bad to put on too much weight. Fair enough, but then she continued with, "So if you fancy an apple, don't eat a whole apple, just eat half of one". I glanced over at DP and he was just .
We discussed it afterwards and we had both decided in that instant that it wasn't even worth saying anything to her, as she was quite obviously too stupid to bother with!
I mean, that's not not eating for two, that's eating for half, surely??
And since when did an apple make anyone fat ffs, if she'd said eat half a burger I could understand .
can you tell it really riled me and I haven't gotten over it yet at 18 weeks!

My mother who is bonkers told me not to stand in front of the microwave as I would cook the baby.

Now, the baby was inside me, and since my innards didn't get cooked when I wasn't pregnant then why would the baby get cooked?

Also, tried to force me to eat liver, and yes to the no raising your hands above your head.

I know someone who was told by a HV that petit foulis (formage frais) was a suitable alternative to breast milk. I wonder how many baby's fell victim to that ridiculous piece of advice

A relation of mine told me that humans "aren't designed" to breastfeed twins

Ummm, ok then.