Worse advice/details you've been given?

[lilmisslibrarian]

I am currently 7 weeks pregnant and am struggling with awful all day nausea. I'm sick once or twice a day but the main thing is feeling sick. I work in a hospital and the smells there can be awful and normally I have no bother with them but recently they've been making me ill!

I have told most of my colleagues that I am pregnant for health and safety but since I have, one of them has proceeded to tell me every horrific detail of her two pregnancies including vomiting for 9 months solid!
Obviously, it wouldn't normally bother me but even the thought of it makes me go grey. Despite me saying to stop she continues to tell me about that and awful childbirth stories!
So what's the worse advice/information you've been given in your pregnancy?

Oh lord I have a list s long as your arm! But perhaps the most bizarre thing a colleague said to me was along the lines of "the first year with a newborn is horrible, it will be the worst year of your life". Cheers for that heads up!

I've also been told about a billion horror birth stories. Many of which were preceded with "I don't want to put you off but...."

As if I have a choice.

Haha, get used to it! Everyone you meet for the next 9 months will have a story about their own/ mother's/ sister's/ wife's/ cousin's/ neighbour's/ dog's pregnancy or labour!

The worst thing that happened to me was being shown a photo of a 12 week foetus after it had been miscarried. It was horrific.

Oh and I'd just announced my pregnancy when that happened!

My MIL decided that the day I announced my pregnancy was the day she was going to tell me in detail about her two miscarriages.

Isn't it bizarre?! I'm at the end of my pregnancy now (39w6d) but have been constantly amazed at how comfortable people feel telling you the most horrific stories.

Can't believe someone would show you a picture of a dead 12w foetus. Completely heartless and harrowing for you. Totally disrespectful to the baby in the picture and its mother.

Yes it seems whilst everyone was congratulating me in one breath, it was quickly followed with "birth is so bad you will want to kill yourself" or "hope you are looking forward to getting up at 4am with chronic heartburn for the next 9months"

Not helpful, and let's face it, not always true. My curteous response to shut these people up is, "I've had a very healthy pregnancy actually (aside from eating copious amounts of cake) and I can't wait for the birth"

Ignore the stories, even if they aren't aggerated, it doesn't mean it will happen to you! I was sick for a week, around 9weeks and that was it. I'm now 27weeks and feel amazing xx

I agree ^ I've sailed through my pregnancy and made sure all the negative prophets of doom were well aware of that too!

I've also decided that no matter how horrible/difficult the first year with the new born turns out to be, I'm going to tell that colleague that it's amazing!

I have a colleague who I'm not that close to who asks if I've been sick every time she sees me! Someone in my close team always responds to my "not feeling 100%" with asking if I've been sick or "feeling a little sicky?". I don't want to discuss it -please!

My MIL had a wonderful pregnancy and felt incredibly healthy in her second trimester -I am suffering from hideous indigestion and heartburn, I don't need to hear that.

It just floors me how people continue to keep talking about it even when you ask them not too!
That's awful about the photo, That's just wrong.
I think I'll have to learn to smile,nod and ignore them but it's not easy when I want to vomit on the their shoes!

My friend told me in no uncertain terms that breastfeeding would be excruciating, my nipples will bleed profusely and I'll probably fail miserably at it (because all of the above applied to her)
I wasted money on several tubes of lansinoh which I have never used as she convinced me to stock up. I was a nervous wreck before DS was born, and was convinced I would fail before I even started. It has been fine.

Ditto eminybob! Had so many people telling me how bad bfing would be & not to be upset when it wouldn't work out. One person in particular seemed disappointed it went ok

(Not that it was a piece of cake initially, but most of the stress was the worry that DD wasn't getting enough. Unfounded worry largely due to the amount of people who told me it would fail)

I also had someone tell me not to breastfeed, move them into their own room at 2 weeks and don't feed them more than every 4 hours! ??

I'm 18 weeks tomorrow & every time I have seen my GP since I were 7 weeks he has told me in no uncertain terms that my baby will be born an addict because of the medication I have to take

Fwiw I'm on an extremely low dose of Citalopram & phenergyn which I can't not take , He is a complete nob .

Why why why do people share horror stories? I never imagined I'd be the kind of woman to share details of my children's births with pregnant women who weren't my 'besties', but I've met so many who've told me all the terrible stories they've been told that I've felt obliged to share my positive experiences to try and provide some balance!

People telling me to eat ginger biscuits/ drink ginger tea etc when I had hyperemesis. Ummm...nah! I was sick all day every day for 22 weeks and lost 1.5 stone in 6 weeks...ginger wasnt the answer (sorry for that gory story OP!).

I didn't have this experience at all! Either that or I've blocked the horror stories out so it wouldn't put me off having another. One person told me that the first six weeks would be the worst and he was right! One thing I never refrain from telling mummies to be is that breastfeeding hurts to begin with. I was told repeatedly that if it hurts I wasn't doing it right, the latch was wrong etc etc. Bollocks. My nipples were not used to being sucked on for long periods of time so of course it would hurt to begin with. I would much rather be told the truth.

I have one friend in particular who responds to every single pregnancy-related comment from me with "Just you wait till..."

I've had an easy pregnancy so far, not gained a huge amount of weight, have no intention of having DC2 for quite some time yet (yup, two under two is going to make you stressed and tired!) and quite frankly, don't want to hear it.

I have now stopped mentioning anything to do with pregnancy to her which may have been her intended outcome

My male colleague made me cry at about 13 weeks when he described his sister in laws emergency c-section. They were outside her room when the door flung open and she was wheeled into theatre at high speed... The bit that got me was the fact that they were running alongside her injecting her with the anaesthetic in the corridor, it sounded so traumatic and so far from my hopes of a routine labour that it overwhelmed me. Bloody men!

My best friends sister found it necessary to tell me about when her baby stopped breathing. It wasn't something we were even talking about, she just worked it into the conversation.

Retro... Ditto that, in my case mainly from colleagues.

"You think you're tired now?! Just wait until..... Blah blah blah"

Its almost as if people think the decision to have a baby was a whim. Believe it or not, I've always known what I was getting myself into, pointing out all the shit things that might happen makes no difference to the fact that I'm still pregnant and what will be will be!

Wow. Sadly a lot of these sound familiar.

I'm 8+2 weeks now but have a 6 year old DS. The list of things i was told was horrific.

Some things were just really negative no matter how true - you'll never sleep again, you and DH will never have sex again, your life is over, no more holidays etc. Wow!

The horrific were people telling me about their friend who was split from front to back during labour and now can barely walk and after 5 operations still struggles to go to the toilet!

Untold amounts of things like that.

DS slept through at 6 weeks, our sex life is pretty damn great , we've been on 7-8 holidays since DS arrived and our life is busy but very complete.

People are fucking arseholes - FACT!!!

I was eventually quite blunt and literally walked away from people telling me anything negative.

I also work in a hospital, and the worse horror stories I've heard have been from pregnant patients! I'm an anaesthetist and I recently looked after a lady during her c section, her second baby. She noticed I was pregnant and began asking when I was due etc... then started to tell me in graphic detail about her third degree tear and the surgery she had needed to try to repair it and how things are still 'not right' down there. I was nearly in tears and the rest of the theatre staff were pissing themselves at my facial expressions whilst trying to remain professional and calm for my patient.

Oh thats awful!
Im pretty convinced that I will never say any of this to people I know, to be honest it has made the pregnancy over the past couple of weeks pretty stressful!

i have to say it hasnt been too bad on the advice front throughout my pregnancy but now im 10 days overdue EVERYBODY thinks they know how to get my baby out. Ive tried everything but my friends convinced it was that one cup of fresh raspberry leaf tea that did it (ive been taking capsules for 2 months..)