weird and wonderful things I am noticing about having a baby in a different country!

[lucy5]

I'm not going to bang on about giving birth in Spain!

I got a bounty type pack yesterday from the clinic and have noticed one or two things that I have never seen or heard of before.

A special dressing and medication pack for care of the umbilical cord!

Advice - Don't have a bath in the last month of pregnancy, only a shower.

A whole pack of implements for removing snot from baby's nose.

Will post more as I work my way through all the bumph.

How bizarre! I'm intrigued as to the reasons behind why they recommend showering, not bathing. I take it that you don't have much option to have a water birth in Spain then!

they only changed the advice to sleeping babies on their backs last year (the nurse told me off for doing so with ds1 who is now 2).

they also give you a bottle of glucose water and instruct you to give it in the hospital here (but that's here - they don't do that on the costa del sol).

and they make you sit for hours on monitoring machines for no apparent reason.

and is it normal for nurses to be obsessed with sunlight and vitamin d? I was told to keep babies by a window for a while every day.

i've also seen some lovely girdles for post birth!!!!!!!1

I'm guessing, but the advice about having showers rather than baths may be so you know if your waters break. My SIL's broke in the bath, and she didn't realise. I suppose it'd also be hard to tell in the shower, but easier than in the bath.

i came to live in france with an eight week old, and they are obsessed with vitamin d and snot removing thingies here too.

also not eating duck whilst pregnant.

ooh htere was a VERY good thread on this once
( i started it ntach)

Can't quite work out your last word Cod but will have a look for your thread later. Thanks!

I remember, many moons ago, when I had come to live in England I found things being done weird over here, compared to germany, lol....forinstance in Germany you always see an Obgyn for your checkups, you get a scan everytime and when you are further along they will also give you a CTG everytime....I found it ratehr weird to learn that over ehre one sees mainly the m/w and you get only one or 2 scans...saying that...now, I even find those 2 to many...funny how one changes over the years, lol!
The snot thing is commonly used in Germany, too, and they are pretty good when they are really bunged up...wouldn't know why a woman would be discouraged from having a Bath...maybe something to do with water standards????
In Germany they used to "bind" the bellybutton, so, german people usually have innies as Bellybuttons...not sure if they still do that!

Just to let you know that I have found more snot removing instruments, 1 battery powered and the other looks like a mini karcher [sp] (like a jet spray) that you stick up the poor baby's nose.

google "snot-sucker" and the first thing up is this! - is this your mini-karcher, lucy?

(Third link down was a MN thread mentioning "snuckers")

That's the idea but this one was electric hehehehe