First appointment with midwife in 6 days and I need to appear heavier than I am any suggestions on how?

[twinkletwinkle04]

I'm pregnant with my 5th child and all my pregnancies have been high risk due to me being a tiny bit underweight for my heigh (167cm, 49.9kg).
All my children were born healthy but the fuss and constant scans were horrendous. I'm trying to avoid it this time by putting weight on in 6 days I'm failing miserably cause I don't seem to be getting any heavier. I've tried protein milkshakes but they are making me I'll. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. As much as I'm a tad underweight I am healthy I'm just naturally skinny.

Op, no one is accusing you of having an eating disorder. Some people are just petite. When I went to uni I was 6.5 stone and I could have eaten pure lard all day and not put on a gram (oh how times change...)

What people are saying is twofold. One, that to try to disguise or cheat on your weight could be seen as eating disordered behaviour by a healthcare provider. It will also throw out blood results and put you at risk if getting incorrect Risk levels. Two, that you are in a high risk category and it appears to be due to more than your weight alone. Obviously none of us have your medical history in front of us, but from the information you've given, you appear to have been placed in that higher risk category correctly.

The best advice I can give you is to be open and honest with your midwife and discuss with her the reasons for her putting you in that category. You will get so much more out of your team if you engage openly with them and keep that discussion going. I wish you the best of luck with the pregnancy.

Just be honest with your midwife.

I don't really stand up for myself.

Tbh, I think that is the key issue here - work on your confidence and assertiveness rather than on 'fake' weight.

Declining additional monitoring and test is not on its own a reason to accuse you or anybody of 'child neglect' - your posts sound as if you feel quite threatened by those who are meant to help you achieve a good pregnancy outcome with a healthy baby at the end; why is that?

The size of a baby is largely dependent on the function of the placenta, so I wonder whether there are any particular reasons why people are worried about your babies' size? Birthweight is not dependent of maternal size or weight, on the contrary very overweight women are more at risk of having low birthweight babies.

Yy to 'be honest with your midwife'.

I'm not good at being assertive in appointments either but a few things that help me are:

• go in with questions noted down. That way I don't forget if I'm nervous and usually they'll ask what questions I have written anyway.
• If I don't understand completely I repeat what I thought they meant e.g. " so you're saying I'm high risk because of this?" and then they'll explain again
• Or take someone with you that is assertive

Hope this helps a little