Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Feminism: chat

Original poster

controlling women during pregnancy

211 replies

Rollon2012 · 16/10/2011 13:35

I've heard a few comments over the years about the hole teetotal during pregnancy thing is not about healthy babies but used to control women.

I wondered straight away , do feminists share this view?
im on the fence generally , although I went cold turkey smoking wise (threw my fags in the bin on the way out of the surgery after getting results) never smoked since and didn't drink at all.

Or is it an excuse the pg women who dont have the willpower to abstain for drinking for 9 months to make themselves feel better??

just wondering what your views on this, (I appreciate it may be a sensitive subject)

OP posts:
bangcrash · 16/10/2011 20:19

As said above the behaviour of alcoholics and drug addicts is determined by their addiction and being pregnant or reading a leaflet will rarely make a difference.

The recommendations given to all pregnant women are simplistic and often delivered in the autocratic paternalistic tones of a medical establishment who has a long history of not placing women's needs at it's centre. Our obstetric history is not a pleasant read in the ainart. The medical care that a pregnant woman receives often continues to fail the individual woman whose chances of a vaginal birth, vbac, breech vaginal birth, csection etc are controlled significantly by the hospital chosen. Have a prem baby and want to bf? Your choice is the units choice with individual units having a bf discharge rate of less than one percent and up to sixty percent.

No accident that older second and third time mothers have more experience and ability to articulate their needs yet still feel like it is a battle. For me the patronising leaflets set the tone for the general standard of care.

thefirstMrsDeVeerie · 16/10/2011 20:36

What bang said.

SolidGoldVampireBat · 16/10/2011 21:29

FAS is a fairly dubious concept. Foetal Alcohol spectrum disorder is made-up bullshit. There is no clear direct proven causal link between the consumption of alcohol and problems with the foetus (perhaps understandably as it is not allowed for scientists to take two groups of PG women identical in every other aspect and forcefeed one lot vodka to see what happens). Raging alcoholics sometimes give birth to perfectly-OK babies. And don't forget that women who obey every single patriarchal order throughout their pregnancies, even somehow managing to obey the ones that contradict each other, might still give birth to babies with disabilities or babies that die shortly after birth.

THe bottom line is that no matter how much men want children, they can't have them without a woman's involvement. So while plenty of men are happy to find a female partner who they can fall in love with and have a family with, there are unfortunately plenty of men who think that the best way to deal with this inconvenient business of needing women to breed from is to make sure that the women get little or no say in the matter, that it's never up to them when/if to have children, and that they are never allowed to forget that being breeding stock is what they are for.
All the anti-choice activism, all the screaming about 'foetal rights', every single spurious panic about things that might be 'risky' in pregnancy, they all stem from misogyny. Patriarchist men not only hate women, they fear and mistrust them and are always insisting that unless they are owned and controlled by men, women will not give men children (or do all the hard work of raising them).

thefirstMrsDeVeerie · 16/10/2011 21:32

I cant agree with that.

I dont think FAS is made up bullshit at all.

Children with FAS have distinct facial dysmorphia and behavioural traits.

I know the spectrum has been widened considerably and I am not sure about that but FAS is real IMO.

SolidGoldVampireBat · 16/10/2011 21:38

MrsDeVeerie: FAS with the facial issues is a real syndrome but I think it's fairly obvious that there is a massive genetic component to it. THe spectrum appears to be a case of blaming any and every sign of SN on maternal drinking rather than looking for other factors (such as maternal poverty or underfunded maternity care).

STIDW · 16/10/2011 21:41

FAS is a recognised by the scientific community otherwise it wouldn't be in the International Classification of Diseases.

With younger women drinking more slowing down or stopping the increase of FAS/FASD is possibly the main concern rather than decreasing the incidence of it. The problem I think is the NHS frames recommendations in direct and and paternalistic "tones" to both men and women rather than the recommendations themselves.

The recommendations to women are to avoid drinking if you are planning to have a baby or pregnant and if they choose to drink not to drink more than 1-2 units once or twice a week. For men it recommends not drinking more than 3 or 4 units a day because it affects the quality of sperm.

My understanding is the effects of small amounts of alcohol in pregnancy are not clear, but doctors know that it does cross the placenta and think it may affect a baby's developing brain.

Putrifyno · 16/10/2011 21:53

It's like all the other advice. It changes so often noone is sure what to believe. My dd is 7 and the weaning and bottle making advice is TOTALLY different to the advice I was given. Fair enough if it was 30 years ago, but 7! I live abroad and the alcohol advice is totally different also. It is quite acceptable to have a glass of wine with your meal

BlingLoving · 16/10/2011 22:01

Quite simply, the fact that I am assumed to be stupid, carelwss and danferous to my unborn child the moment I get pregnant is deeply sexist. Agree with posters pointing out that risks should be explained rather than blanket rules. Perhaps that would stop the prevalence of women not eating any fish or other silly responses to pregnancy because they have simply been told something without an explanation of why, which would allow them to apply sensible judgement.

Similarly, I fou d it deeply offensive how people felt they could comment on what I did, without any real knowledge of their own. One man actually tried to stop me drinking a single can of coke at a dinner. I could not work out which shocked me more - the fact that he thought coke was so bad or that he thought it was ok to tell me, the wife of a colleague of his, what I could or could not consume.

Original poster
Rollon2012 · 16/10/2011 22:29

Thats shocking BlingLoving what were his reasons??

OP posts:
BlingLoving · 17/10/2011 08:15

Caffeine! He was concerned I didn't know that coke had caffeine!!

I pointed out politely that as I was at a work function out of duty and couldn't drink wine (I did in fact drink sometimes but not that night) I needed something to keep me awake!

EdlessAllenPoe · 17/10/2011 09:39

erm yeah...although that was very restrained of you 'none of your business' would have been more appropriate.

EdlessAllenPoe · 17/10/2011 09:42

"
My understanding is the effects of small amounts of alcohol in pregnancy are not clear, but doctors know that it does cross the placenta and think it may affect a baby's developing brain."

you know what this concern lead to? Research! ...and you know what that research found? ......no association between birth defects/ mc/ disability and small amounts of booze.

this is why conjectures should always be checked with research.

Original poster
Rollon2012 · 17/10/2011 10:09

Caffeine! He was concerned I didn't know that coke had caffeine!!

I pointed out politely that as I was at a work function out of duty and couldn't drink wine (I did in fact drink sometimes but not that night) I needed something to keep me awake!

FFS!!!! you can drink caffiene when your pregnant!¬ actually my childless 19 year old friend did something very similar, I wanted another coke and I got 'maybe you should have a coke too much caffiene is not good for the baby' it was very humiliating felt like slapping her other people were there.

OP posts:
BlingLoving · 17/10/2011 10:11

Exactly roll on. But that's my point, a random man thinks I don't know how to look after myself. I do believe that the way women are treated during pregnancy is misogynist. It puts us back a thousand years and assumes we are much less intelligent than men.

cecilyparsley · 17/10/2011 11:46

as I understand it recent research indicates that the health of a baby is affected by lots of things that both parents do prior to conception.. epigenetics and what have you.

I think it could also be successfully argued that the way a pregnant woman is treated by other people will affect her mental and emotional state and this will affect the baby.

My point is that, when it comes to influences on the health of unborn children we can draw a circle as large or small as we want.
Multiple influences will feed in and affect the child

davedavidson · 17/10/2011 15:23

Exactly roll on. But that's my point, a random man thinks I don't know how to look after myself. I do believe that the way women are treated during pregnancy is misogynist. It puts us back a thousand years and assumes we are much less intelligent than men.

Hardly. Some pregnant women genuinly don't have a clue and drink/eat things they shouldn't anyway. A simple reminder never hurts

thefirstMrsDeVeerie · 17/10/2011 15:27

Wasnt there a thread once about a woman who had bought a coffee in starbucks or somewhere and the young man at the counter said 'should you be drinking this?'

bloody cheek

PamBeesly · 17/10/2011 18:04

Bloody cheek is right TFMDV. I am currently pregnant and refrain from alcohol because I'm afraid of all the conflicting advice, some advice says its ok, others advice warns against it, I'm avoiding it now, this is my first pregnancy so I really don't know.
I am Shock at the men I've heard about telling women to not have coke, alcohol,coffee etc, its no ones business. How many times have they been pregnant? Gobshites
I also agree with the poster who said there needs to be more of a focus on the inseminator.

EdlessAllenPoe · 17/10/2011 18:07

to which the answer is, surely 'yes, should you be serving it?'

Original poster
Rollon2012 · 17/10/2011 19:15

I wouldn't serve a woman fags or booze tbh but you cant be expected to go without caff. especially how tired you get aslong as you drink more water than caff. it'll balance out I limited myself to one 20ml cup of coffee a day as that was what was advised.

to make myself clear I dont condone boozin whilst pregnant nothing worse than a heavily pregnant woman 'largin it' (no pun intended)

OP posts:
TheRealMBJ · 17/10/2011 19:20

Why not? It isn't against the law to drink or smoke? Who are you to make that vision for her?

TheRealMBJ · 17/10/2011 19:20

Blush decision.

Putrifyno · 17/10/2011 19:29

"I wouldn't serve a woman fags or booze tbh" Why on earth not? So you are not in fact "on the fence" at all.....Hmm

Putrifyno · 17/10/2011 19:36

I spent two weeks on the antenatal work due to transverse lie. The day of my planned cs, dd turned head down. They sent me home. I was stressed out beyond belief and 39 weeks pg. That evening, to celebrate, we went to the pub. I had a lovely large glass of wine. The pub regulars all joked that I looked like I might pop at any minute and started a sweepstake. Then we picked up a chinese takeaway.

I would have cheerfully lumped anyone who "judged" me that night. Strangely - no-one did.

EdlessAllenPoe · 17/10/2011 19:38

oh the happy friday afternoons of late mat leave, popping a bottle of gin and a whole shedload of tonic into the trolley...to consume a single gin absolutely annihilated with tonic in the evening, whilst DH got merrily toasted on the rest...

refusal of service would have prompted a stiff letter to Justin King!

Swipe left for the next trending thread