my guilty/not guilty mum-to-be thread

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Hello there!

I'm 24 weeks and think I'm sort of getting the hang of what should be cut out completely (wine; love you; thanks for the good times; bye), what can be dabbled with (oh this appears to be goats cheese in my salad... just this once?? pretty please???) and what activities may set off the bad momma alarm somewhere in the cosmos but frankly, I don't care anymore.

So in the spirit of that, here are a couple of things that I've read I shouldn't do, and goddammit, I'm going to do them.

Go to concerts

Last night I went to see Elbow. It was REALLY LOUD. I spent much of the night sitting with a jumper folded across my stomach and my arms pressed protectively across that. Son-to-be reacted to this tremendous rumpus by leaping about the most I have ever felt him, proper arms and legs pumping on all sides. Part of me was thinking 'eeep, sorry little friend!' but part of me was thinking, 'oh my god, I love this song, and I'm a grown woman and I'm awake and out of the house with other adults at 10pm, yayayayayay!'

Drink caffeine

So I got home at midnight. And now I'm at work. My eyes are the colour of Malteasers packets and my brain has the texture of tepid rice pudding. Today, I will probably drink three cups of tea. My heartbeat will be artificially raised by the caffeine and my blood flow restricted. I shall counter both of these concerns by raising my heartbeat and bloodflow naturally, by going for a walk at lunchtime, BECAUSE I WILL NOT BE ASLEEP WITH MY FACE IN MY SOUP.

Take that cosmos! Would you like to share your guilty/not guilty activities with me?

You can drink five cans of coke a day if it is your only source of caffeine. I do :-)

Concerts?!? What?!? I've adhered to all the rules - even changing to decaf tea and some rubbish about hibiscus in fruit teas making them bad - but what the heck is the problem with concerts!?? I'm 35 weeks now with no more concerts planned so too late now but what is the issue?

I actually find the idea of the baby hearing music very cute and wanna make sure it gets my taste. I believe concerts are more of a concern for the mother, e.g. big gatherings, little space, risk of being squeezed, fainting, dehydration etc. But all depends on the venue, type and size of event obviously.

I've read Expecting Better. But I'm still nervous enough that I follow the standard pregnancy guidelines. If I'm doing what the OBs told me to do, and something goes wrong, and someone tries to blame me for it, I'm pretty sure I could tell them to go to hell. I'm not sure I'd have the same confidence based on something I read online or in a book. So I limit my caffeine, even though it makes me miserable and may not be necessary.

Quite a lot of this stuff IS NOT RISKY. According to mainstream NHS wisdom and Drs like Prof Regan at St Marys, not even controversial sources.

Important to say, because while most might chuckle at being "naughty" someone who has a higher risk or anxiety might miss out.
Also - this being the Internet - someone who has had a problem might incorrectly blame themselves after googling. Or get blamed by an idiot going by "everyone says" knowledge.

There's really no need to feel the slightest guilt about most of these things.

Cooked soft cheese = safe

Concerts = safe

Limited coffee = safe

These were all deemed safe by my miscarriage prevention consultant at a national centre. If it was safe for me it'd be safe for anyone! I'm high risk.

So envious of those of you going to see Foo Fighters my due date is about 11 days before the tour starts. Gutted!

Smoked salmon also fine. As part of your oily fish "allowances ".

There has been speculation about whether prolonged, loud decibel levels could harm a baby's hearing and I've read advice suggesting pregnant women, especially in the third trimester with a baby's developing senses and increasing ability to hear external noise, do not go to rock concerts.

As with all of this gubbins, the 'advice' is based on the premise that there's been no conclusive scientific testing and so no-one is prepared to say for sure either way, so you decide for yourself what you think is sensible and what constitutes a risk worth taking and get the goddamnhell on with it.

Which is what this thread is all about

Cooked soft cheese is perfectly fine indeed and this is how I enjoyed mine over Christmas: sweervywine.com/2014/12/21/no-guilt-no-pleasure-at-christmas/

I think the idea with concerts is worry about noise affecting the baby's hearing.

I have a runny boiled egg every single day (19 weeks pregnant).

Tricky go skiing!! I did at 9 weeks- I'm 14 now! I'm quite an accomplished skier so just took my time more but we still did our fair share of black runs and also was the worst snow conditions I've ever experienced (think ice, stones and bits of grass sticking through what in some places was brown snow) but u wouldn't have missed it for he world! I didn't fall once the whole week and we just took plenty of hot chocolate breaks, longer lunches and I had a supply of sick bags and mini pain au chocolate pinched from breakfast in my coat pocket for emergencies! A friend also went on her first ever ski holiday a few years back whilst around the same gestation and she fell plenty as she was a beginner and her soon to be 3 year old is happy and healthy! X

That's it! I'm eating runny eggs. Watching my husband tuck into poached eggs (while I'm eating cooked-to-within-an-inch-of-their-life-scrambled-eggs) every weekend has been killing me! If you see someone in the supermarket on Saturday asking for "Lion eggs", that'll be me!

Lorelai most if not all eggs sold in supermarkets are lion stamped! I go for the expensive, organic ones just because it makes me feel slightly better, no idea if they're actually any better for me though

I agree with Grockle overall. The misinformation and random theories, mostly spouted on the internet or by random people out and about are very frustrating. My personal favourite being a woman on MN once who was outraged because her mother had dared to make her a fish pie (without prawns) as clearly she couldn't eat that.

I feel no guilt and eat/drink:

eggs, runny or otherwise, as long as they're lion stamped
All cheese except uncooked blue cheese or unpasterized cheese
Medium rare steak
Smoked salmon (but not from dodgy sandwich bars)
At least one coffee and one tea a day. Regularly have a second tea and/or a diet coke. Would think nothing of more tea if I felt like it. Have had the odd second cup of coffee when really need it (even when not pregnant I tend to only have one cup of coffee a day so it's not me trying to cut back).
Regular small glass of wine up to three times a week. Wouldn't even consider going out for dinner without one.
Small portion of chicken liver pate at Christmas and, if it was offered at a dinner party etc would think nothing of a small portion. I don't eat it regularly so haven't had it otherwise.
Ditto small occasional portions of tuna when I fancy it or am at sushi restaurants.

I have now been diagnosed with gestational diabetes and that is having a much more profound impact on what I eat because there are good, highly researched, well understood reasons to not eat or drink certain things. Not drinking any caffeine or eating eggs for no good reason is completely beyond me.

One thing I do not ever do: order sandwiches, especially salad parts, from dodgy little delis and corner shops. IIRC most listeria cases in this country are from lettuce. Not chicken or meat.

Agree with you workingbling. The only thing I avoided in my last pregnancy, and will again with this one, is take aways. Fine from a restaurant with carry out, but nothing else. The risk of catching something grim is relatively a lot higher than from the 'banned' foods.

One of the most significant out breaks, as well as the lettuce one, was traced back to catering margarine. Which was used in hospital sandwiches amongst other things.

I didn't know runny eggs weren't ok.... just thought raw weren't a brilliant idea! I had a very yummy fried egg bap this morning. And smoked salmon for lunch... I may not have read into this properly yet - now confused!

Both are absolutely fine MrsD!

Soft egg yolks are fine!!!

Phew. That's pretty much my staple diet at the moment really must read up but had just assumed it was all common sense really!

Doctors and MW's don't always help with all this. My friends have been told that they can't have any coffee or tea whatsoever; that they have to get rid of their cats (there is no higher incidence of toxo amongst pregnant women cat owners) and one was also told she should not drive, as when baby kicks, this might distract her

And don't get me started about exercise - usually ranges from 'slow walks' to 'better not'. Or in case of very progressive ones, 'don't let heart rate over 140' - again, no scientific basis, just a myth.

You can't guarantee that your baby won't be picky by eating a varied diet. I did when I was pregnant with DD. She's 2.5 and would live on bread now if I let her. Some of it is just the way your kid is, and if there's anything you can do about it I don't know what it is.

It would sure be nice if we could get rid of the guilt around a lot of these things that just aren't risky. Unfortunately, that would require a lot of people to either understand what is and isn't good scientific research, or to accept that sometimes miscarriages (or other bad things) just happen, not because of anything the mother did to cause it. I'd love to see both of those happen, but I don't think they will in my lifetime.

It's kind of scary that you can't do anything to guarantee that you won't have a miscarriage, or to guarantee that your kid won't be a picky eater. A lot of people I think can't accept that, so when someone does get one of those outcomes, they look for something she did "wrong" to explain it. It's the just world fallacy. If we could get rid of that one, we could also get rid of blaming the victim for things like rape.

Unfortunately I've seen women asking desperately if they "caused" their miscarriage due to unsubstantiated googling. An added layer of pain at an awful time.

I also read a thread where a woman was 100% convinced her son had a congenital issue because she'd used cling wrap. She was so angry and upset with the manufacturer but also herself. After quite a while it transpired doctors had said it was random but she dug for answers online and ended up in a very unhappy place.

That's why - even when lighthearted - imo we need to be careful about not adding credence to unverified things "everyone knows" iyswim.

There's also people who aren't pregnant who read such things then tell you after your 3rd loss you should stop wasting nhs money because it's clearly because you dye your hair you hussy when actually you have a blood condition.

Hazle yup and my high risk hcp were far more laid back than the local ones!
I wasn't supposed to exercise much but that was due to my bad back with the added weight!
Driving, limited coffee etc all ok!