I’m of two minds on stuff like this. On one hand, I agree with bean that the way the media touts every single half-assed scrap of evidence that babies might benefit from restricting and depriving pregnant women of their indulgences is motivated by an unsavory love of having any excuse to pick on women as much as possible. On the other hand, I do think that women should have as much information as possible to help them bring healthy babies to term. I think that the difficult nature of pregnancy reinforces why it’s so critical that make sure that it’s a choice and not mandatory or used as punishment for having sexual experiences that Mike Huckabee disapproves of. But I also think that all the hyper-focus on women’s behavior during pregnancy misleads people into thinking that’s the number one factor when something goes wrong (like a miscarriage, which is somewhat correlated to caffeine use according to this article, though bean brings up some methodology problems), which could lead women to beat themselves up for no good reason. If you had a morning cup of coffee and you miscarried, the odds are mostly that it was a pregnancy going wrong for reasons outside of your control, such as genetic anomalies. As much as it pains us in an era of sperm magical thinking, the female body rejects most opportunities to bring a pregnancy to term for good reasons that we should be grateful for.
Regardless of how good the study is, though, or how right it is, the media outlets who tout every pregnancy deprivation possible as absolutely mandatory reinforce the idea that they think women are nothing more than ambulatory wombs. This quote made me spit out my coffee that I drink to wake up the brain I apparently don’t have.
Pregnant women should try to give up caffeine for at least the first three or four months, said the lead author of the study, Dr. De-Kun Li, a reproductive and perinatal epidemiologist at the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research in Oakland, Calif.
“If, for whatever reason, they really can’t do it, think of cutting to one cup or switching to decaf,” Dr. Li said. “Stopping caffeine really doesn’t have any downside.”
There are two possibilities here: Dr. Li is really that much of a thoughtless asshat, or his quote was taken out of context. Either way—say what?! No downsides?! The only way that there’s no downsides for a caffeine addict to quit drinking coffee altogether is if you believe that women are utterly unimportant, or become so the second they get pregnant. I consider fogginess, cravings, and headaches to be severe downsides of quitting coffee. And if concern for living women just can’t get you to care, consider that the stress of that is probably not good for the fetus whose presence apparently trumps the idea that women are still human beings with lives of their own.
If quitting coffee is mandatory for bringing a healthy pregnancy to term (and let’s say for argument’s sake that it is), then by all means, encourage women to quit. But show a little understanding that women are human beings, just a ounce of empathy. Quitting coffee is hard for a good reason. It’s an addiction, albeit one that’s generally pretty harmless in the grand scheme of things.
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I think these sort of recommendations are basically part of the general trend the media has on health issues. For example, dividing every single thing in the universe into things that will give you cancer and things that won’t.
With the way these things usually go, coffee will probably be discovered to be good for pregnancies in a few months anyway.
And God knows how many threats to your unborn baby still remain to be discovered. Prudence would seem to dictate, in the interests of the children, pregnancy should be avoided altogether.
Good post, Amanda- when I had my elder daughter almost 13 years ago, my OB-GYN told me to stay away from coffee etc. But when I tried, the headaches were dreadful- we ended up discussing it and I allowed myself 1 cup a day, over-diluted with milk to stretch it out. And had she had HER way, my OB-GYN would have had me quit MILK, but that was her personal preference- she hatedthe stuff.
I also liked blueberry/wheat microbrew beer- she allowed as how 1/2 a draft beer a month was NOT going to be an issue at all. So when it was time to get admitted for delivery, the nurse asked the obligatory medical history questions. When it got to the alcohol one, I truthfully answered that I had had 1/2 of a beer every month, as my doctor had allowed. Sure enough, the nurse wrote down that I had been drinking my entire pregnancy! I gave her old holey hell until she relented on THAT one!
Damn, they do look for reasons to shame and guilt you, huh? And I was a CO-WORKER there… 13 years later, I’m still pissed about it.
I was never a coffee-drinker or a raw-fish-eater, but during my pregnancy I did not give up soft cheeses. And the reactions of some to that were “but it’s only 9 months! And if there’s any chance whatsoever of it causing a problem, don’t you want to avoid that?”
Nine months is not a short time. And it’s made even longer if you choose to give up every single pleasurable food/drink/activity.
Bedrest is another whole issue. There’s no evidence that bedrest during pregnancy improves outcomes. But it is recommended all the time, for any kind of spotting, contractions, or elevated blood pressure. And again, the attitude is “it might help, and don’t you want to do ANYTHING possible to improve the health of your baby?” Sure, let’s give up any possibility of earning and income, or really doing anything at all, for a completely unproven but common medical intervention!
I wish I could dismiss the fact that this is sexist so cavalierly, William, but while the health nazis are indeed everywhere, they go into hyperdrive when a woman is pregnant.
The most suprising thing for me was how likely you are to have a miscarriage anyway.
I think it’s good to have this information, definitely, however I wish it could have just been left at the stage of providing information, rather than venturing into ‘women should…’. If I want to give up coffee in the hope of decreasing my miscarriage risk, that is my choice, but equally, if I don’t, that is my business too. After all, it doesn’t affect anyone else but me!
It’s scary how
involvednosy, condescending and downright frustrating people get around pregnant women (or people above a certain weight, but that’s another issue). The minute a woman’s pregnant, everybody’s giving her orders on what to do to supposedly minimise miscarriage risks, and instead of it being her choice, she gets disapproving looks.I’m in the UK, and here the coffee and alcohol advice is looser and constantly changing, but I think the usual line is 1-2 units a week for alcohol. What annoyed me though was the suggestion that some women might find that suggestion confusing, so let’s suggest NO alcohol instead, that’ll make things so much easier. Not. Advice and information are always a good thing, but pregnant women don’t need more pressure on them. It must be really, really frustrating to have others constantly scrutinise your choices, and women shouldn’t have to put up with it. Advice = good, as long as you’re free to take it or leave it.
What really pisses me off about these sorts of reports is that, while it is good to understand that caffiene generally has a detremental effect on fetal development (although I doubt that your uterus will rupture the moment a java touches your lips), they consistently ignore the much larger threats to health and babymaking in favor of scolding individuals for pretty minor choices.
Pregnant women in particular are constantly getting instructions about what they can and cannot do. They can’t drink coffee or alcohol. They can’t eat freshwater fish. They can’t handle certain pills. And with the exception of coffee, they’re taking the culpability for the fact that you can’t do these things away from the corporations who have introduced these toxins and carcinogens into the environment and laying the blame for the havoc they wreak at the foot of women who “made bad choices” during their pregnancy–even though not all women have the luxury of that choice due to economic or cultural constraints. It’s easier to tutt-tutt women for having a cup of tea than it is to tell companies that they can’t dump mercury into the airs or heavy metals into the sewage system that is then ill-processed and used as fertilizer for crops. I can guarantee that the health risk posed by eating hormone-injected meat and dairy is much higher than the health risk posed by having an after-dinner glass of wine.
The way the media harps on these stories and almost completely ignores studies that indicate that the stress of quitting an addiction like cigarettes or caffiene cold turky is much worse for the development of the fetus is just more proof in my mind that woman-shaming is what drives them. Shouldn’t contradictory studies be MORE newsworthy since they go against common wisdom?
Good comments and good post, Amanda!
No woman should worry that she’s a bad mom when she’s five weeks pregnant. But that’s how doctors pose these studies to us. “Oh, this is such a little thing you need to do for the life of your baby! You want a cup of coffee, but it’s growing a heart and lungs in there!” William, I get what you’re saying–my father has high blood pressure and his doctor saw nothing wrong with recommending a totally vegetarian, salt-free regimen that no red-meat-loving Southern man could take seriously–but pregnancy advice takes the nonsense to a whole new level. My doctor banned caffeine, sushi, soft cheese, alcohol, chocolate, and being around smokers. When I mentioned that European women indulge in all these and more, he said, “Yes, but if we don’t take it away, it may be hard for you to say when.” Speaks for itself, doesn’t it?
On the other hand, I do think that women should have as much information as possible to help them bring healthy babies to term.
Thanks for continuing the discussion on this issue, Amanda. With regard to my stance, I agree that women should have as much information as is out there so they can make informed choices during their pregnancies. What I disagree with is the tone in which the information is usually presented: panic! You women must be perfect during pregnancy or ELSE! There are so many other ways to help pregnant women collect all the relevant information, but many of the so-called pregnancy bibles, like What to Expect When You’re Expecting, seem to miss this…as does the press, for the most part. That said, I was relieved–and surprised–to see that the Times quoted Dr. Westhoff here.
Agreed, bean. I’m just covering my ass so no one mistakes me for dismissing the importance of maternal health to a developing fetus, which has happened before.
Not only the doctors (mine was cool with me drinking a reduced amount of caffeine, as long as I was drinking plenty of water) but everyone around pregnant women feeling entitled to judge what you’re doing/eating/drinking and sharing their stories.
to snappy mackerel: I think I might have found a new doctor at that point. Out of curiosity, did he suggest your partner also have those banned for him? I mean, if they’re in the house, you might not know when to say when…
DV
When I was pregnant twelve years ago I did give up caffeine *as instructed* (I didnt really miss it) but as I posted over on bean’s thread the whole what to expect when you expect attitude that *you (and only you) can produce a perfect baby in a less than perfect world)* is very frightening and disempoewering to women. There are hundreds of things, apparently, that you can do “wrong” and no way of telling whether you are doing anything “right” until the baby comes out–and then of course if something is “wrong” the blame is all on you as if you didn’t have enough troubles.
On the other hand I’d like to give a shout out to my pregnancies which, though not easy, brought me a surge of hormones that made me incredibly tough, agressive, and even more forthright than I am now. I felt incredibly powerful and invincible and didn’t hesistate to wade into fights or scenes with teenagers or other people I would previously have avoided. If they could only bottle that stuff!
aimai
IIRC, fertilizer runoff is the most dangerous unntentional abortifacient in American women’s environment, so much so that the FIRST thing a woman is advised to do should she experience miscarriage is to drink ONLY bottled water.
I don’t see a lot of Government regulation about petrochemocal fertolizer, do you? Or even much about it in the media.
Therefore: I call woman-shaming on this one.
I don’t know about anyone ELSE, but early pregnancy makes you feel so wretched, I couldn’t have sipped a coffee without barfing to save my life. Nor smoked.
Not drinking caffeine while pregnant is total myth. My coffee-addicted mother drank it with me in ‘85 before the hoopla, and with my 2 younger siblings. We’re all completely fine aside from my being a caffeine addict myself (who thinks she’s starting to die if she doesn’t consume any). It is most definitely a contrived way to try to tell women that because they are the bearer of children, they really shouldn’t choose to indulge themselves in exuberant ways that they’ll need to completely cut off when pregnancy inevitably occurs. Garbage.
When I was pregnant, the thought of coffee in the first 3 months or so made me feel nauseous - so caffeine wasn’t really an issue. I always feel bad for my pregnant friends who are Diet Coke junkies because that habit seems to be harder to break than coffee. Anyhow, after the nausea went away, I had one to two cups a day and my daughter magically managed to survive. She also powered through several glasses of wine and two Guinnesses over the course of about 5 months.
In the early part of my pregnancy, I was vigilant about reading what I could and couldn’t eat, but after taking a look at the FDA website, I realized that rather than go after food handlers (listeria), fish farmers (mercury), or - god forbid - meat processors, the government was pretty much just recommending pregnant women not eat anything. I even read recommendations that pregnant women not eat raw veggies because of the possibility of pesticide contamination. That particular admonition put me off governmental recommendations and pushed me into the all things in moderation group.
The people who killed me are the ones who say “yes, but why risk it??” “It” has never been explained to me. I’m still not sure what you’re risking by having a glass of wine or a cup of coffee. Particularly when your pregnancy is far enough along that people feel like they can pass judgment.
Personally I’m with Dr Westhoff:
There’s some excellent advice out there. But:
It’s such a lot, and quite often there isn’t a consensus. Much of it is patronizing, like being lectured by bloody Mary Poppins. Usually the advice is one-size-fits-all. Amazingly, every woman is different. Our bodies, our metabolisms, everything. If advice is valid for women of all sizes, ages, nationalities, habits and ways of life, I’d like to have this stated explicitly, and I’d like to be told why.
I agree, it would be better to just present the findings and trust pregnant women to draw their own conclusions. If you’re old enough to get pregnant, you’re old enough to make your own decisions. A little more respect won’t do any harm.
Yeah, the comments you get while pregnant are ridiculous. My second pregnancy went very, very wrong and I spent my entire third pregnancy scared that the same thing was going to happen. I was very careful to follow any recommendation that I could see a rationale for, but I did eat lunch meat a couple times a week, I ate blue cheese when I wanted it (very occasionally) and I had 1 coke usually about every other day in order to keep the hideous headaches to a minimum, because I couldn’t even function. My doctor, coincidentally, was fine with it but I did get comments from co-workers if we were in a meeting and the day I had a frozen coffee (keep in mind I was 8 months pregnant- the chance of miscarrying based on that one coffee was infinitesimal) you would’ve thought I was the worst pregnant woman in the world. That’s why I skipped champagne at my sister’s wedding- didn’t need the whole world judging me for a half a glass of champagne even though I knew it would be fine. I agree that women should have all available information to bring healthy babies to term- miscarriages are no fun and discovering your baby has something very seriously wrong with it is even less fun- but the public shaming is just not necessary.
Funny, I just read an article in a woman’s type magazine that showed in a well designed scientific study that moderate amounts of coffee have no effect on miscarriages and babies. The study was from England, and we all know how those people are, letting their pregnant women indulge in a glass a wine or so, eat soft cheeses, and drink tea and coffee, and their reward? A lower maternal/baby mortality rate than ours. How dare they???! /snark
It was amazing to me as a doula how much stress women went through during pregnancy, most of it societial induced. It seems when a woman is pregnant she becomes community property with all sorts of people giving advice, wanting to touch her belly, asking her questions on the commute train when all she wants to do is freaking sleep.
Even worse than the choadish science that the media delights in spreading is the sheer number of moral scolds and general sexists who bother pregnant women at every opportunity. A friend of mine got dozens of stares of death when she bought beer at the grocery store. She wasn’t even planning to drink it, she was just getting ready for a party. Even smokers don’t get the number of disapproving advice.
And then there’s the Buddha-tummy rubbing. It’s like people assume a pregnant woman is public property.
All the women in my family (both in-laws and related) have been made ill from caffeine during pregnancy, although most were regular imbibers before. Something about the idiosynchronic DNA in the little blighters and their interactions with their mothers . . .
But if you think the scolds are hard on the pregnant mothers, they’re just as bad on new mothers whom are breastfeeding (and God forbid you not breastfeed, you fucking heartless bitch . . ).
As a recurrent miscarrier who loves coffee, I made sure to read this this morning (a rare event). YOu’ll notice that it only doubles the “risk” for miscarriage, not the rate. How do they determine miscarriage risk? By spotting? Less than perfect betas? What?
Also, of the 172 miscarriages they had, 130 of them were by women who had had NO caffeine (page 4 of the abc article).
I’m not seeing any evidence at all to support this, at least from this stupid article.
And I intend to drink my coffee as long as I want to. I think it’s cruel to take it away from a 1st trimester woman who’s exhausted from the hormones, must try to maintain a job and a life, all while pretending she’s not pregnant. I just don’t see how that works.
“Even worse than the choadish science that the media delights in spreading is the sheer number of moral scolds and general sexists who bother pregnant women at every opportunity.”
It doesn’t end once you have the baby, either. I’ve had complete strangers ask if I was breastfeeding, whether I delivered vaginally, whether I received an episiotomy, what my diet was due to breastfeeding. . . It goes on. And in my opinion, the breastfeeding busybodies are as bad as, if not worse, than the Buddha-tummy rubbers (which I luckily avoided - maybe because I’m 6 feet tall and scary?) and pregnancy diet scolds.
I think the Times article did a good job of framing the issue and mitigating against the “bad woman! not living in a sterile bubble while pregnant!” hysteria by quoting the physician who said:
I would also point out, that the fetus is most susceptible to in the first trimester, when many women don’t realize they’re pregnant. Having taken human developmental biology, I am amazed that the development process EVER works correctly–so many things that could go wrong, most of which are entirely out of your control. As KMTBERRY notes, reducing caffeine consumption is not really going to make a huge impact anyway.
(My mother’s aversion to coffee was how my father realized she was pregnant with my younger brother–she came down one morning after my dad had made coffee and said “Ugh, coffee.” Dad said: “You’re pregnant again.” She said: “Don’t be ridiculous,” but he was right.)
During my pregnancy, I had one diet Coke a day, if I needed it, and the occasional sip of beer (which was all I wanted). And yes, about once a month, I’d get an insatiable craving for the street-vendor hot dogs.
At the time there were loads of conflicting studies about caffeine/pregnancy, and so I was told just to “don’t use it be safe.” But I still had to get up, go to work, and function so…no. And I wouldn’t do it any different this time either.
I mean, I don’t hang around smoke or eat fish *now* because I worry about taking care of *myself*. If mercury hurts my fetus during pregnancy, well, it ain’t gonna be good for me at any time. Sheesh.
Pansy P–I’m three months now, and the only aversion I’ve had is to Diet Coke. I have actively craved coffee, whiskey, red wine, champagne, raw salmon, and bologna. And I indulged some of those, quietly, in my own house, because like Julie said, it’s not worth the hassle of dealing with well-meaning others.
desert_vixen–it’s funny: not only could my partner keep up all the “bad” habits, but he wasn’t even encouraged to stop smoking. I, on the other hand, was told to stay away from him and leave the room if he lit up. Bad for the baby, y’know.
I will second and third the posters who said that the ideal would be to present pregnant women with information and let them decide.
When I was pregnant I had one cup of coffee each morning, without which I wouldn’t have been able to survive…and then where would my baby be? Darned if it wasn’t the case that no matter how much I wanted more, my body just couldn’t accept another drop of caffeine, so I only had the one cup in the morning. And my daughter turned out just fine.
I cut down on my soft cheeses, but didn’t eliminate them entirely, and my daughter turned out just fine.
In the last trimester, I even ate sushi, and she turned out just fine. As the sushi chef at our favorite restaurant said, “what do you think pregnant women in my country eat?”
Mackerel - Good on you and congrats! Is it your first pregnancy? As mine went further along, I cared less and less what people had to say to me. The phrase of choice was “oh, is [insert whatever I was eating] okay during pregnancy?” I always just said yes and kept on eating (or drinking). Never got much push back.
I never was ballsy enough to order a drink at a bar. Maybe next time around.
When I was pregnant, it was the “no eating fresh fish” that got me. Fish that is so high in Omega3s and protein and should be so good for pregnant women cannot be eaten…Why?
Because of our mercury laden, polutted waters and the toxic ways corporations manufacture it. If we are so concerned about women (or should I say, fetuses) then why do we think nothing of telling women not to eat fish that we’ve polluted?
Oh, because the entire burden of pushing a healthy child out of ones loins is laid upon the woman. Women sacrifice. Big men in corporations certainly shouldn’t have to.
Apparently decaf isn’t all that safe. So when he recommends that pregnant women switch to decaf, Dr. Li might actually be endangering pregnant women and their unborn babies…
The health nazis are worse to pregnant women b/c they are the only ones who really listen and might obey.
If you told a man he had to stop drinking coffee or beer for nine months, you’d have to give him a hell of a lot better reason than “it might cause a problem, but we don’t know what or even if it would b/c we haven’t really studied it”
But all you have to do is think about the possibility of something happening–hey, you can get diseases from soft cheeses if you’re immuno-deprived so how do we know it won’t affect a fetus?–and suddenly everyone’s screaming from the rooftops that pregnant women shouldn’t eat brie or they are abusing their babies.
Funny how things that were “bad” for one pregnancy were okay for another. And funny how Brits say one drink a day is fine, while any drink at all here in the US is abuse. It’s funny b/c the Brits don’t have a higher rate of FAS than Americans.
Again, women are nervous, especially with their first babies and want to do the “right” things. So instead of questioning as much as non-pregnant people, they are more willing to follow orders. So people get goofy on ordering them.
It is misogyny added to health nazism. It’s a power game. OBs can still be petty tyrannical gods without much questioning.
Which is why it’s really important to vet your OB before you get pregnant and make sure she’s not a nazi.
And I’m sure that if the wives/partners of these “big men in corporations” get pregnant, they can afford to buy non-mercury laden fish at a specialty market and have the home equipped with latest and best filtration system. And their Mansion on the Hill was built from the ground up a few years ago, so no lead paint! [snark] Aren’t they so lucky? [/snark]Let’s not forget that they probably have awesome health insurance, too.
When my mom was pregnant with me a little over two decades ago, she drank a ton of Diet Dr Pepper and ate sushi once a week. I’d bet she also indulged in wine occasionally and I know she ate chocolate (craved Carnation Instant Breakfast). I am totally fine. (Well, I have some issues, but they are definitely genetic, not gestational.) I think this stuff is all crap. We joke that the caffeine stunted my growth, because I’m 5′2″, but she drank as much caffeine with my ten-year-old sister and she’s taller than I am and will probably end up being 5′10″ or more when she’s done. This is a bunch of nebulous crap designed to scare women and control them and it’s another example of the paranoia that Americans have about doing the “right thing” at all times, especially with regard to motherhood.
Somebody needs to do a well-designed study of the extent to which stress from giving up all the normal comforts of life affects pregnancy. Mom walking around for 9 months with a headache from giving up caffiene can’t be good for that fetus . . .
The health nazis are worse to pregnant women b/c they are the only ones who really listen and might obey.
Yep. Health nazis are worse for women in general. Women who “overindulge” are usually looked upon more harshly than men who do the same; having a supposed health justification for casting aspersions makes it even worse. And who do you think is generally responsible for cooking all those healthy meals? I would even extend this argument to the current extreme aversion to prescribing opioids for pain; studies have shown that women are far less likely to get the pain relief they need. (Somewhat related: here’s an excellent post from WIMN’s Voices on The New York Times’ recent story on fibromyalgia.)
Great post Amanda! The warning labels up in seafood restaurants are enough to convince me that the chemical pollutants we’ve put into our air, water, and food are far more dangerous than coffee or a glass of wine.
Not to threadjack – but ashley’s comment made me wonder something.
I’m in the process of trying to get pregnant and I’ve found an amazing amount of shaming and aversion to any comment I make about it. I’ve been thinking a lot about the whole “pretending she’s not pregnant” thing and the only conclusion I can come up with is that the topics of fertility, miscarriage, etc are the same kind of unmentionables that menstruation or masturbation once were.
If I get pregnant I’m supposed to hide my exhaustion and soldier quietly through the massive changes I’m experiencing? I understand keeping it from an employer, but everyone else? It pisses me off that I’m supposed to deal quietly and then, if I were to have a miscarriage, I’m not supposed to tell anyone and just suffer in silence?
I really feel like these topics shouldn’t be taboo in public and I genuinely believe that the reason there is such an aversion to talking about them is because people don’t want to have to deal with the icky, messy, difficult aspects of pregnancy and childbirth. Am I crazy to find this so freaking annoying?
I love all the “my mother/I/my friend/etc. did X and her/my child turned out fine!” stories as much as the next person… but the plural of anecdote isn’t data.
Not that I’m defending the so-called health “nazis” (and honestly, how I despise that term when so used — they may want to limit the bad foods/drinks of which you partake, but they’re not rounding you up and gassing you to death, are they?), or this particular study, which basically tried to take anecdotes and make them into data.
Just that, you know, with a *well-designed* study (and this one was not), the data will be true *for a population*, not necessarily on the individual level. So for every population over which, say, breastfeeding produces the best outcomes, there will of course be anecdotes of the “Well, I was formula-fed and my IQ is 220 and I’m 102 years old and the healthiest person on the planet!” type, but FOR THE POPULATION, it’s safe to say that statistically, breastfeeding is going to produce the best outcomes, statistically.
Ha. HAHAHAHA.
From week 6 through week 20 of pregnancy, the only way I kept myself from puking my guts out was a cup of hot Irish Breakfast tea (high caffeine tea) or black coffee very first thing in the morning. I don’t know what it was or how it worked (straight hot water did not work as well, I tried) but if I had one of the two of those, I could function with a minimum of queasiness and puking. Otherwise, I wasn’t going to keep anything down.
Dr. Westhoff is my hero. I’m 6 months pregnant, and I try to eat what I damn well like. Seriously, well-done steaks? No prosciutto? WTF? They want me to starve, apparently.
Now that I’m pretty well past the “beer-belly or baby?” indeterminate abdomen phase, I keep hearing the moral scolds in my head. But fuck that, I’m having sushi today.
Funny how things change. I have an old memory of an etching showing women partaking of gin while in a state of pre-pregnancy. I can also remember many of the old gals that nipped a bit and their kids seemed normal. Having said that, I teach FAS children. Not pretty.
why does this site continually eat my totally unexceptionable comments?
aimai
Jan Andrea,
I think some of the anecdotal type of comments are meant to argue against the media trend to do just the opposite, which is to take information that is true “for the population,” as you explained, and suggest it’s true for all individuals.
You can’t win since stress is notoriously bad for both conceiving and maintaining a pregnancy. So what if you give up caffeine and stress yourself so bad that you miscarry? It’s still all your fault, right? So, in the end, it’s probably best to consider studies like this, but not too seriously. If the advice doesn’t work for you, forget it. A sane and happy pregnant woman is a better environment for a fetus to gestate (and a better mother once the baby is born), even if she drinks a glass of wine per week and a cup of coffee every morning, than a miserable and depressed woman who is totally additive free. (Also consider the absolute risk before panicking: A woman who has had five unexplained miscarriages and no live births might want to consider cutting out caffeine seriously whereas a woman with three live births out of three pregnancies, all at 40-41 weeks gestation, and no family history of miscarriage or early labor at all…probably needs another cup of coffee.)
Oh, excuse me, I forgot to say…And people who lecture pregnant strangers on the need to quit drinking caffeine should be told to commit an unnatural act with a venti latte. Whatever the risk is, it is up to the person who is pregnant to decide whether to take it or not and she can get far better advice to help her decide from her doctor or her midwife or her mother and other female relatives than she could from a stranger, even a truly well meaning one.
If I get pregnant I’m supposed to hide my exhaustion and soldier quietly through the massive changes I’m experiencing? I understand keeping it from an employer, but everyone else? It pisses me off that I’m supposed to deal quietly and then, if I were to have a miscarriage, I’m not supposed to tell anyone and just suffer in silence?
IME, Fizgig, the secrecy thing is actually self-protective. employers are wone thing, but the kindly-intended but crappy reactions to early miscarriage of even those close ot the situation can be utterly devastating. One friend of mine — a small-town girl — told her inlaws about her first pregnancy under strictest secrecy, only to lose the baby and have to bear the congratulations of random people all over town for weeks afterwards, all because her inlaws couldn’t kep themselves quiet.
Even if you only tell family and they keep it under wraps, they come off with very hurtful stuff about “getting back up on horses” and “the baby wasn’t even hardly real yet, so why are you so depressed?” You’re right, this is driven bya taboo — people don’t want to have to empathize with a loss that seems to them so mysterious and distant. But their responses can be so incredibly heartless that suffering in silence actualyl seems preferable to some women. Hence the use of secrecy by many women of my generation (X).
My doctor was very firm that whatever harm caffeine might potentially cause my baby, the risk was a whole lot higher if I tried to drive to work without a cup of coffee first.
That’s the thing that gets me. Listeria in lunch meat, sushi, caffeine, small amounts of alcohol? All less risky than driving. But driving isn’t all about enjoyment of life, so no one ever mentions it’s dangerous. Meanwhile, sushi had better be banned.
And I did have a stranger lecture me in a sushi restaurant when I was 8 months pregnant. I wasn’t even eating raw fish, just already cooked shrimp and eel. But I was visibly pregnant, and that made me fair game.
Fizgig, my understanding of the first trimester taboo is that since that’s when most miscarriages occur, you don’t tell people so that they won’t know if it goes wrong. However, having had more than one miscarriage, I wanted the people at work to know why I suddenly missed a few days and then was pale and drawn and had been crying and couldn’t lift anything over 15 pounds. Seriously, was I supposed to let them think I had some mysterious illness and was dying? On the other hand, nonviable pregnancies frequently have fewer symptoms, so it probably is easier to “pretend” My successful pregnancy involved five and a half months of throwing up five times a day. If I hadn’t told my coworkers I was pregnant, they would have had my committed to treat bulimia.
Comments from moral scolds while I was pregnant drove me MAD. They’d pat my belly and put on their sad faces. “Are you sure you should eat that? You’re pregnant!” “Are you sure you should drink that? You’re pregnant!” “Are you sure you should be [participating in whatever physical activity]? You’re pregnant!”
Hey, no, really?? I AM? Well, HELL’S BELLS! I had no idea! Arrrgh. Mind your own bidniz. And DON’T TOUCH ME!
I had exactly one restriction during my pregnancies - no caffeine. Not because of some nebulous study, but because it demonstrably sent my blood pressure skyrocketing. Doc’s only other instructions were “Eat whatever the hell you want, but don’t overdo it.”
I’m sad that there aren’t more doctors like mine.
I’ll add to those who are in the “I turned out fine” category to say that my mother drank coffee (daily), smoked (moderately), smoked pot (occasionally), and drank socially and in moderation all throughout both her pregnancies with me and my sister. We turned out fine, we didn’t turn out “perfect”.
I balk at the idea that babies have to be born “perfect” and that mothers are bad people if their kids don’t turn out “perfect” from the womb. They might have illnesses, they might need special care, they might need to use more taxpayer money, oh noes! This stigma on all the kids who didn’t turn out “perfect” pisses me off. There’s all sorts of ableism waiting around the bend after society gets done punishing the mothers for not being perfect.
I used to tease my mom about birth defects, too. When she was pregnant with me, she didn’t give up anything–still had her coffee, beer, etc., and she had some kind of medicine for morning sickness that was later taken off the market precisely because it caused birth defects. So we blame my crooked toe (my big toe on my right foot is in almost sideways) on that. Otherwise I’m perfectly fine.
And really, the whole policing of pregnant women is just ridiculous. It isn’t like the brain completely stops working once you get pregnant. I was still perfectly able to decide for myself what I was willing to give up. I don’t like coffee or pop, so I caffeine wasn’t an issue for me, but I wasn’t about to give up my chocolate, fish, shellfish, or rare steaks. And if I wanted a glass of wine with dinner or a drink at a party, I was going to have it. Most of my extended family smokes, but I wasn’t going to stop visiting them and it would have been rude to ask them to stop smoking in their own home, so I just lived with it. I am a definite believer in the principal of ‘everything in moderation’. And the moral scolds who couldn’t believe that I would dare to risk my precious, precious babee by continuing to live my life as I saw fit can just kiss my giant ass.
And while the plural of anecdote isn’t data, if it was so risky drinking caffeine, or eating soft cheese or fresh water fish while pregnant, Europe would have a population of zero.
While I applaud more information, it should be informative. “Something could happen” is not informative. “The risk of miscarriage is increased to x in a thousand to y in a thousand” is.
Exactly. I hated all the belly touching and general invading of personal space that happens when you get pregnant. I have issues with touching and I guard my personal space ferociously. Normally this isn’t a problem for me, but when I was pregnant it was like everyone everywhere lost all sense of boundaries. I don’t like to be touched by people I don’t know (and I even have problems with people I do know touching me uninvited) and that doesn’t change just because I got pregnant.
I actually about broke the hand of one of my favorite cousins once, for that exact reason. I was 8 months pregnant and we were at a funeral for one of our aunts. I had had every single member of my extended family (and there are loads–my mom has 11 siblings, all of whom have reproduced–and everyone was at that funeral) touching my stomach. When she reached for my belly, I grabbed her hand, squeezed hard, and lost it. I felt bad about losing my temper, but enough is enough.
Who *are* these people who pat pregnant women’s stomachs? That never happened to me. (Small children would occasionally touch my stomach when I was pregnant with my second one and had a first one in a baby carriage… but adults? Never.)
The same thing happens with medication. I was on Wellbutrin at the time for a fatigue condition that had existed *before* I got pregnant. When I became pregnant, the fatigue tripled. Wellbutrin is a Category C drug, meaning “we have no animal tests showing that it does anything bad, we have no evidence that it does anything bad, but it hasn’t been tested so maybe it does something bad and we don’t know.” People told me I needed to quit it. Yeah, because the vague possibility that maybe a drug which hasn’t been shown to cause birth defects but hasn’t been shown *not* to could cause a problem is more important than my not being able to get up in the morning. And I had two existing kids, my stepchildren, I needed to take care of. And for the first three months of my first pregnancy, I had a day job.
I consider fogginess, cravings, and headaches to be severe downsides of quitting coffee.
Oh, lord the headaches. Shit, I’m having trouble cutting out caffeine in the evenings. Try to take it away from me and I. Will. Kill. You.
Now, asking someone whose body is already going through all sorts of interesting changes, no all of them entirely pleasant, to add more misery?
Have an espresso on me! Make it a double.
Unless someone can convince me that drinking coffee while your pregnant is as bad smoking, then I will readily have my morning cup while carrying another life. That being said i completely agree. When I read that article this morning I couldn’t help but think as well that it’s classic mommy blaming. lets make it even more uncomfortable for women to be pregnant.
Furthermore, my mother deprived herself of everything labeled remotely bad for a fetus, when she was pregnant and I still came out with a learning disability. So in the end all I know is that you can do everything that the media tells you is “right” and still end up with a “not so perfect” child.
oh as another side note, I’m tired of men being able to keep up all their bad habits while the woman carrying their child is pregnant and sacrificing. So I had a discussion with my fiance that when we have a child (when I have a child) he also has to sacrifice what I have to sacrifice for nine months. Smoking, drinking, and our party all night lifestyle. No way am I gonna be sitting at home sick and bloated alone while he’s out partying. Also, he has agreed to be my slave. hahaha. meaning if my feet are too swollen to wash the floor or make dinner, guess who’s gotta wash the floor and make dinner?! he does!I totally love it. haha.
Fortunately for me, I’ve never been a morning caffeine drinker, so I didn’t have to give it up while pregnant.
My Waterloo was carrying things. My OB (who was wonderful), said to limit myself to 70% of whatever I could normally carry without problems. I was in ferocious shape at the time, and could do step aerobics with someone my own weight over my shoulders in a fireman’s carry - so carry weight of 165 pounds. I decided to be conservative and stick to 80 pounds or less (I.e. less than 50% of what I could readily carry).
I had a coworker chase me down the hall to rip a 5 lb. printer out of my hands and scold me publicly about risking my baby. 50 lb. bags of dog food were completely out of the question. I couldn’t even begin to pick one up without somebody shouldering me out of the way to grab it from me.
Contrariwise, once I’d had the sprog via c-section, and really shouldn’t have been carrying anything (same OB told me my carry weight was 10 lb. - approximately the weight of the sprog all by himself), even my own mother would leave me to schlep sprog, diaper bag, and carseat all together by myself. After all, it would only hurt me if I overstrained myself. It wouldn’t hurt the baby.
Alicia, I believe most of us over the age of 30 had mothers who had coffe and milk during pregnancy, drank tab water, probably beer and wine, and maybe smoked. And if one woman in ten thousand (I’m making this number up, btw) had a miscarriage because of that, it was lost in statistical noise.
The question is how much is a person expected to give up to reduce how low a risk to their own or their children’s health? At some point it passes ridiculous and becomes political.
oh as another side note, I’m tired of men being able to keep up all their bad habits while the woman carrying their child is pregnant and sacrificing.
Tell me about it! I’ve never been pregnant and very likely never will be, but the stories I’ve heard from coworkers always grate on my nerves. I had one in particular whose husband not only wasn’t willing to sacrifice any of his enjoyment or convenience, but pestered her about being
tired and not wanting to go out all the time. THey had recently purchased property and he all but bullied her into going out and helping him clear off some of the land (it was woodsy and overgrown). Because limiting their social life and making him do the work on the property affected HIM.
I may have missed it, but has anyone mentioned the fact that domestic violence INCREASES during pregnancy? So perhaps the doctors should advise pregnant women to ditch their male partners in the interest of the health of their fetus.
Gah, that study just pisses me off.
Why? Because a lot of miscarriages DO have preventable causes, and without thorough exams and medical histories, it’s beyond assinine to just ask women about caffeine intake and yell “a-HA!”
I mean, if the authors of the study aren’t checking for things like uterine scarring, hormone imbalances, cervical issues, or genetic problems, who the hell cares what their opinions on COFFEE are? Jeez.
They might as well interview pregnant women about whether or not they eat pizza or wear open toed shoes. I bet they could find shaky statistical evidence linking just about any damned thing with miscarriage, given their (cough) ’stringent’ research techniques.
Oh, and of course there’s the obnoxious “Be afraid, women! Be very, very afraid!” aspect, which always annoys me, as does the copious use of the words ‘might,’ ‘may,’ and ‘could possibly’ in these kinds of studies.
Hey, flying monkeys MIGHT drop a pink novelty piano on my head the next time I leave the house, but I’d like dingbats making medical claims to be a little more certain before they start trying to freak everybody right the fuck out.
Gah, that study just pisses me off.
Why? Because a lot of miscarriages DO have preventable causes, and without thorough exams and medical histories, it’s beyond assinine to just ask women about caffeine intake and yell “a-HA!”
I mean, if the authors of the study aren’t checking for things like uterine scarring, hormone imbalances, cervical issues, or genetic problems, who the hell cares what their opinions on COFFEE are? Jeez.
They might as well interview pregnant women about whether or not they eat pizza or wear open toed shoes. I bet they could find shaky statistical evidence linking just about any damned thing with miscarriage, given their (cough) ’stringent’ research techniques.
Oh, and of course there’s the obnoxious “Be afraid, women! Be very, very afraid!” aspect, which always annoys me, as does the copious use of the words ‘might,’ ‘may,’ and ‘could possibly’ in these kinds of studies.
Hey, flying monkeys MIGHT drop a pink novelty piano on my head the next time I leave the house, but I’d like dingbats making medical claims to be a little more certain before they start trying to freak everybody right the fuck out.
Tapetum– That’s just infuriating and insulting. I am just now– at 8 months– accepting the help from carrying things and the chairs b/c I’ve started to get some back pain.
Fizgig– I can’t speak for anyone else. I will say that in general, I don’t talk about “trying to conceive” because to me it feels a bit too much like talking about my sex life and/or inviting commentary on pregnancy– exactly what I’ve spent several months trying to avoid. That said, I ha a miscarriage a few years ago and I *did* tell certain friends, I didn’t suffer alone. And no one expected me to. But I was VERY glad I hadn’t told the whole world or co-workers b/c I really didn’t want to have to explain the situation or discuss it a bunch with folks who were outside of my close circle. I imagine everyone’s needs are different that way. But I didn’t feel like waiting to tell people was to spare them– it was to spare me.
As someone who hopes to be pregnant by the end of this year, I am quite insulted by this. On one hand it’s good to know that too much caffeine might harm a baby but on the other hand it’s as though the medical community wants me to effectively put my life on hold while I gestate. It’s as though I’m a “baby factory.”
Oh! And for the record, I asked my husband to give up alcohol for 9 months with me. I just told him it wasn’t fair that I had to be the “designated driver” and the only sober one at every event for 9 months, and he agreed. He’s not keeping with every other restriction, but he’s been great about pitching in on tasks that would normally be mine as I can’t keep up. When the all-day nausea was here, he did all the cooking and washing of dishes. (I couldn’t bear to even stand in the kitchen w/ the smells.) Now he’s the one who does all the scrubbing of the bathtub b/c I can’t lean over the tub to wash it, etc. And he doesn’t complain about it. I thank him because he’s doing more around here. And he tells me how much he appreciates what my body is going through– even if I’m doing less housework, I’m certainly working hard at this point!
I may have missed it, but has anyone mentioned that domestic violence INCREASES during pregnancy? So perhaps doctors should advise pregnant women to ditch their male partners in the interest of their fetuses.
From tapetum: I had a coworker chase me down the hall to rip a 5 lb. printer out of my hands and scold me publicly about risking my baby.
The exercise of clocking said coworker aside the head with the printer would have been very good for you and the baby, you know.
@fizgig, #37: I haven’t miscarried, but I’m guessing women who’ve had recurrent miscarriages don’t want to tell everyone they’re pregnant for several reasons. (1) Hearty congratulations, when you know the odds are crappy that the pregnancy will lead to a live birth, are like rubbing salt in a tender wound. (2) Thoughtless people post-miscarriage who assure you “I’m sure it happened for a reason. You’re better off this way” or “Maybe you’re just not meant to have children.” (3) It spurs other women’s pregnancy stories, and a “habitual aborter” really doesn’t need to hear a woman with three kids dramatize how awful her morning sickness was, when morning sickness + healthy baby is a much different scenario from, say, three miscarriages in a row followed by bloody D&Cs.
If people weren’t apt to be such assholes, it would be easier for the woman with recurrent miscarriage to tell people about her pregnancy. People handle their disappointment and grief in their own way, and I really don’t think this was a case of a woman too prudish to talk about what’s happening in her body.
Michelle, thats so awesome! I only wish more women had such a supportive significant other! I know my mom and grandma didn’t. Hell, I can totally picture my grandmother decked out in her sunday dress doing the chores while carrying a 6 pound baby in her womb. Granted everyones pregnancies are different, but just knowing that you’ve got the supportive of the father while your going through it must be the greatest comfort. Afterall, it’s totally what you said “given what your body is going through it’s not as if your not working hard”!
It’s a kind of sexism. This becomes clear after the baby is born, when you’re still getting all that advice. My husband and I do things exactly the same way, yet I get WAY more stupid comments than he does. And he gets all of the compliments: “Ooooh, baby’s going out with Daddy? Isn’t it nice if Daddy spends time with you, diddums?” etc etc.
If I were looking young and sweet-natured and blonde, I’d expect even more idiocy to come my way.
dumb question, does age affect your chances of having a miscarriage? a woman I knew was in her 40s and she had three miscarriages before she had her baby. I’m just curious because I had never known anyone to have that many miscarriages in such a short space of time. But maybe thats because most people wouldn’t talk about it. I dunno.
sorry to be off topic.
Some female comedian whose name escapes me did a bit about wearing a pregnant suit to a bar and ordering a double. “I’m drinking for 2 now!” Ever since then I’ve really REALLY wanted to do that.
Yet another anecdote: my grandmother had seven (seven!) healthy pregnancies with no miscarriages and smoked all the way through each one. All her children have ADD, but it’s not like they’re disfunctional.
Gah, that study just pisses me off.
Why? Because a lot of miscarriages DO have preventable causes, and without thorough exams and medical histories, it’s beyond assinine to just ask women about caffeine intake and yell “a-HA!”
I mean, if the authors of the study aren’t checking for things like uterine scarring, hormone imbalances, cervical issues, or genetic problems, who the hell cares what their opinions on COFFEE are? Jeez.
They might as well interview pregnant women about whether or not they eat pizza or wear open toed shoes. I bet they could find shaky statistical evidence linking just about any damned thing with miscarriage, given their (cough) ’stringent’ research techniques.
Oh, and of course there’s the obnoxious “Be afraid, women! Be very, very afraid!” aspect, which always annoys me, as does the copious use of the words ‘might,’ ‘may,’ and ‘could possibly’ in these kinds of studies.
Hey, flying monkeys MIGHT drop a pink novelty piano on my head the next time I leave the house, but I’d like dingbats making medical claims to be a little more certain before they start trying to freak everybody right the fuck out.
I dunno. Lots of anecdote and how things are fine. Yet I instruct many students with FAS, ADD, ADHD, and autism. I get the feeling that the docs and grannies fed the odd kids some sleepy meds to ease them to the next world.
Since domestic abuse increases during pregnancy, perhaps doctors should advise pregnant women to leave their male partners “in the interest of the baby.”
Okay in regards to soft cheeses though, the reason it’s “banned” during pregnancy is to avoid listeria, which can harm the mother and the fetus. (it’s probably only an issue during the 3rd trimester when the woman’s immune system is most suppressed). Listeria kills about 20% of the people who get sick with it, so personally I wouldn’t mess around with it for my OWN safety.
/snipHey had recently purchased property and he all but bullied her into going out and helping him clear off some of the land (it was woodsy and overgrown). Because limiting their social life and making him do the work on the property affected HIM./endsnip
Your friend should get together with my friend and share stories about clearing property/building a house with asshole husband. My friend did all the work,did the organizing, schlepped up to bumblefuck eygpt, neogotiated with the contractors, etc. Her husband got to sit and do his roleplaying game with his buddies.
And of course now that the baby is here, the husband is again nowhere to be found except for some “babysitting” duties. He even had the gall to criticize my friend for not packing up her office in time for the big move-which he expected her to do by herself while managing a fifty hour work week, with an hour commute each way, and a baby. Yeah whatever dude. If it were me, I would have loaded the kid in the car, got a hotel room far north and let him deal with it all.
Especially because the asswipe was too cheap to hire movers.
I swear I don’t understand love, because it supposedly is what keeps her tied to this asshole.
Y’know, if it wasn’t for caffeine in my first trimester, I might have chosen to abort rather than suffer through the constant debilitating migraines (for which you can take nothing but Tylenol, which doesn’t even cause a dent in the pain). I tried to give it up but after the fourth straight day of an unrelenting migraine, with the attendant vomiting, I said “fuck this!” and started drinking caffeinated beverages. I don’t drink coffee, so I received my caffeine through my one daily Coca-Cola and I still had migraines at least once a week. Given that the stress of migraines, plus the vomiting, plus the inability to conduct one’s life in that condition were probably much worse for the fetus than the caffeine, I’d say the risk is definitely worth it. That said, I never drank coke in public so as to avoid comments (but I did drink root beer because it is decaffeinated).
I also craved hot dogs my entire pregnancy (hated them before I got pregnant, had to eat them at least once a week during), allowed myself to eat sushi, have a deli sandwich once a week, brie several times, and (on the advice of my doc) continued to eat salmon once a week. I was glad that my OB did not give me a single list of “do not eat” foods, he just told me to continue eating normally (rather than “for two”).
Nevertheless, I notice even among pregnant women on baby forums it becomes a more-ascetic-than-thou competition and women will use it as a way to “prove” they are going to be better mothers because they are willing to make the sacrifices (That is until you start discussing home induction techniques at 37 weeks. Then you get flamed for suggesting that that might actually be harmful to their unborn baby). Women are some of the harshest critics of each other during pregnancy.
On the hiding pregnancy issue: I did not tell anyone but my two sisters about my pregnancy until I saw its heartbeat at 9 weeks. Since I knew I was pregnant at 4 weeks, I realized that there was a good chance I would miscarry and frankly I did not want to share that with everyone. It’s not a shame thing. When my sister miscarried while I was in England, nobody told me about it and I felt like a huge asshole two months later when I asked her about the baby. I didn’t want anyone else to experience that, plus I didn’t want to have to explain to everybody that I had miscarried and hearing the “it’s part of God’s plan” or “now it’s your guardian angel” bullshit.
It’s a wonder we have 6.6 billion people on the planet, what with all the perfect conditions that are necessary to gestate successfully.
The only reason I’d purposely get pregnant and decide to continue would be to see just how far I could push the boundaries of human decency where teratogens are concerned. Unfortunately, so few things appear to be a sure bet, which is why this report disappoints me so. Caveat: I may have some residual anger issues from an earlier experience. Being treated worse than a malfunctioning incubator in a freak medical experiment can have lasting effects. I felt the pain; I’m not sure anyone understood that at the time.
justanotherjane: Yes, we realize that the risk of soft cheese/deli meat is from listeria. What we are saying is that the annual number of listeria cases compared to the annual number of pregnant women does not justify the levels of hysteria employed to get us to stop eating those foods. In other words, the risk of getting listeria from these foods is far less than, say, getting into a car accident during your third trimester but nobody (yet) has suggested that women should not ride in cars.
“Lots of anecdote and how things are fine. Yet I instruct many students with FAS, ADD, ADHD, and autism.”
Hi there- I’m a mom of a daughter with autism (my younger child). Had a great pregnancy. We have no idea why Jean is autistic- but I’m fairly comfortable that my 1 cup of coffee a morning did NOT contribute to her condition…
(Sorry if this is gonna post twice)
I’m tired of men being able to keep up all their bad habits while the woman carrying their child is pregnant and sacrificing.
Actually, they can’t. That is to say, they shouldn’t, if the issue is the health of the fetus and not just everyone having fun oppressing the mother. It’s not good for a developing fetus to be exposed to second hand (third hand?) smoke via the pregnant woman breathing in smoke when her partner lights up. So men who are hanging out with their pregnant partners and young children really ought to be nagged to give up smoking (all substances) and probably drinking too, given that drunk men (and women) are more likely to be violent, therefore more likely to be a threat to the fetus, etc. I’m afraid the men luck out on the caffeine issue, though: there is no second hand caffeine effect.
nobody (yet) has suggested that women should not ride in cars.
Heck, I’ll suggest it: Women should avoid cars. So should men. Cars are evil carbon monoxide spewing, pedestrian endangering pieces of junk. (Yeah, I know, off topic.)
From Babycenter.com:
“Until recently, pregnant women were told to avoid soft cheese altogether during pregnancy. These days, the recommendation from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is to make sure any soft cheese you eat has a label clearly stating that it’s made from pasteurized milk.
Raw milk and any cheeses or other dairy products made from it can carry disease-causing organisms, including a potentially deadly bacterium called listeria monocytogenes. Although listeria infection is relatively rare (the CDC estimates that it affects 2,500 people in the U.S. every year and this number appears to be decreasing), pregnant women are about 20 times more likely than other healthy adults to get it, and the infection can be devastating or even lethal for their babies. Soft cheeses are thought to be particularly good hosts for listeria. But the pasteurization process kills the bacteria and a whole host of other organisms.”
So when in doubt, make sure your cheese is made from pasteurized milk.
@ Orange: I’m a “habitual aborter” and while I’ll tell my supportive friends about my pregnancies early on (I want to enjoy that 2 weeks, thank you) I won’t tell the family or the people who’ll really be involved in the kid’s life. I just can’t stand them pitying me, and I really don’t want them talking aobut it. I was most recently due on January 5th and had to have my husband tell his family to not ask me about pregnancies over the holidays lest I tell them graphic stories. Because I would have to get them to shut the hell up.
And when I told someone about my first (of so far 3) miscarriages, they immediately said “What’d you do?” As if I caused it.
People don’t realize that a positive pregnancy test doesn’t necessarily mean baby, and it sucks a lot. People are assholes to miscarrying women and I try to instruct them on how it really is.
Dianne– When I was exhausted the first trimester– and willing to drink coffee, but the smell made me ill– we had a joke in our house. My husband got MORE coffee than usual. I cut back and got the naps! I found the all day nausea put a lot of extra stress on *both* of us. I was physically miserable all day, and he had to do double duty to make up for all the things I needed help with. We both had it bad– just in different ways.
the frog queen– I believe there is some evidence out there that pregnancies at a later age increases the odds of miscarriage. I doubt they truly know why, but I’ve read speculation that as we age, our eggs age too, and the genetic abnormalities (that are the main cause of miscarriage) increase. But so much of what I’ve seen is sort of speculation. But multiple miscarriages– even in a short space of time– *do* happen to a not-insignificant number of women. It’s one of the reasons we waited nearly 2 years before trying again. I just didn’t want to risk going through that again.
And ditto the previous posters about miscarriage. I can’t speak for anyone else, but it made me unspeakably angry when someone would tell me the baby was “better off in heaven with God” or was now “my little angel.” I’d rather not discuss it than get platitudes like that.
I just heard this story on NPR as I was reading through comments. They had the doctor actually speaking and I don’t think it’s a matter of misinterpretation or out of context quoting.
I’m going to look for a transcript because I’m listening at work and can’t hear very clearly on my crappy computer speakers, but basically she was saying how easy it is to give up caffiene for the first 3 to 4 months pretty flippantly.
And I’m not sure if she said that she was particularly impressed by the numbers of miscarriages that can be prevented by precautions by the woman or the numbers that can’t.
I was pretty disappointed by the tone of the NPR piece. It didn’t even give as much balance as the Times piece.
My apologies, it was not the doctor I heard quoted in the story.
But the quote was very similar:
“What’s really interesting about the study,” says Flanagan, “is that so many causes of miscarriage are not alterable by lifestyle or anything a woman can do. So, cutting out caffeine can be a pretty easy thing to do for the first three or four months of pregnancy, when the miscarriage rate is the highest.”
Her tone was much more careless than the words alone convey.
And the story.. bleh. It’s here. Not only should you reduce caffeine or you are just selfish and lack willpower, but you also need to do extensive research to see how much caffeine you’re getting in those drinks! Where are you buying your coffee? What kind of coffee bean is it?
You silly, silly women people you! Don’t you know that the definition of “risk factor” is:
…any factor, including any physical, psychological, emotional, demographic, or situational factor that is statistically associated at a level of P
Fortunately, this definition of risk factor only applies when those in charge of making medical decisions for you are considering if they should permit you to have an abortion, not when it comes to women who’ve decide to carry to term. So, while you still can, drink all the coffee and alcohol you want. /snark
Sorry if that was a bit harsh, but, after coming across this latest assault on female patients, I’m really discouraged.
Can I get a triple abortispresso to go please
Ugh, let me try again. Risk factor:
“Risk factor” means any factor, including any physical, psychological, emotional, demographic, or situational factor that is statistically associated at a level of P
Fortunately… is mine.
Of course, to play the Devil’s Advocate, if you do whatever you want while pregnant and your kid shows up autistic, or physically damaged, or even just a bit slow, you’ll be spending the rest of your life wondering “what if?” and “If only I hadn’t…”
Tough issue.
Last try:
“Risk factor” means any factor, including any physical, psychological, emotional, demographic, or situational factor that is statistically associated at a level of P
… a level of P
PIATOR - does “whatever you want” include smacking people who tell you you’ll wonder “what if?”
How many people get to do “whatever they want” in any circumstance? Oh yeah, people with privilege. That group, however, doesn’t include pregnant women, so you can stop worrying your silly little head.
…a level of P
OK, I give up, but please go read the linked text. It’s gruesome.
[Amanda, sorry for the multiple postings. Please delete as you see fit.]
Of course, to play the Devil’s Advocate, if you do whatever you want while pregnant and your kid shows up autistic, or physically damaged, or even just a bit slow, you’ll be spending the rest of your life wondering “what if?” and “If only I hadn’t…”
You’re pretty much going to end up doing that whether you did anything “wrong” or not, so you might as well just take reasonable precautions and not worry about it. There’s no way to be so perfect that you can’t blame yourself (or be blamed by others).
Autism is thought to be largely (90%, IIRC) genetic. It isn’t caused by caffeine, smoking, alcohol, vaccines, fish, impure thoughts, or excessive obsession with having the perfect baby.
PIATOR- I have horns of my own. Many miscarriages and birth defects are due to defective sperm. It wouldn’t be unheard of to suspect the father was on crystal meth, or perhaps abusing Velveeta or maybe using the wrong shampoo.
I wonder if women and, more likely, teenage girls living in states with draconian abortion laws will take to drinking high doses of caffeine trying to induce the abortion they want and can’t get. This will, of course, lead to some deaths from caffeine overdose (which is difficult, but possible, especially if you use pills). But, hey, what’s the deaths of a few “sluts” compared to protecting the sacred little blastocyst?
january 2008
i wanted to apologize
for denying your existence
until you forced the issue
by which time you’d proved me right
i wanted to apologize
for forgetting to tell you
that you were loved and wanted
so that my first words to you
were “stop trying to kill me
you little shit”
not that you could hear them
but they were unkind
and i take them back
and almost wish you had
i wanted to apologize
for working too hard
and taking chai instead of folate
and fighting with your dad
on my good days
i convince myself
that india would not house a billion souls
if these things mattered
on my bad days
i suspect they did
“Of course, to play the Devil’s Advocate, if you do whatever you want while pregnant and your kid shows up autistic, or physically damaged, or even just a bit slow, you’ll be spending the rest of your life wondering “what if?” and “If only I hadn’t…”
Tough issue.”
That’s not playing devil’s advocate, that’s being an asshole.
If you do everything “right,” if you do everything the doctor tells you, even the stuff that contradicts the other stuff, and your kid winds up with an abnormality anyway, you’re still going to wonder if maybe some Thou Shalt Not (The Pregnant Lady Edition) slipped past you, or if some study will come out in the next few years to tell you what you did wrong. Hell, if the abnormality is the result of the doctor’s flub, and the only thing you did wrong was listen to them, you can even beat yourself up for not having somehow known that the doctor wasn’t up on the current research and was giving you bad info.
There’s literally no end to the permutations of the Let’s Blame Mom game. Trying to control whether or not your child pops out with autism or a deformed kidney or a missing toe or a short attention span by not drinking coffee or avoiding tuna or averting your eyes while passing the zoo’s rhino enclosure is largely an exercise in futility.
I’m at work right now, and as I’m reading this, I’m listening to two co-workers lecturing a pregnant third about how she can’t have caffiene or she’ll miscarry (they’re also claiming birth defects), and then listing all the other things she can’t have.
Okay, I know this is off topic, but this:
is ridiculous!! WTF? Who are these people who feel like they have any right to say things like this? And “it’s better off this way…” or “Maybe you’re not meant to have kids” are just as bad!! What, is that supposed to reassure someone who you know is actively trying to have children and just lost one? My god…people are disgusting. What’s wrong with “I’m so sorry” and a hug?
To all of you who have experienced this kind of invasive, judgmental bullshit on top of such an emotional, life-changing experience, I’m so sorry. *hug*
“Of course, to play the Devil’s Advocate, if you do whatever you want while pregnant and your kid shows up autistic, or physically damaged, or even just a bit slow, you’ll be spending the rest of your life wondering “what if?” and “If only I hadn’t…”
As the mother of an autistism spectrum son, I can honestly say- nope, I have way to much to do today and tomorrow to worry about what I missed during pregnancy. Did the best I could under the circumstances, ignored all the pregnancy police and had a baby that scored as high as possible at birth and yet he is still a human being with his own quirks and differences.
I did avoid caffeine as much as possible, limited alcohol and stopped carrying heavy loads when little old Italian women were around (don’t ask- the horror, the horror). Your personal genetics and those that you and your partner pass to the unborn have more to do with your ability to carry to term than most af the listed risk factors and the only solution to that one is to not get pregnant.
So I say relax, get you check ups, take your neonatal vitamins and give in to the cravings- mine was ginger cookies.
Jules is spot on. “I’m so sorry” is almost always the appropriate thing to say.
History Mom (#66) isn’t necessarily right that Tylenol’s all a pregnant woman can take for migraines. My doctor prescribed Fioricet (Tylenol, caffeine, and a mild barbiturate that doesn’t seem to get any use other than in combo headache medicines) when I was pregnant, and it made a huge difference for the nasty headaches I got.
Nobody knows if my kid’s minor issues are related to anything in particular. He was a preemie, I had a dangerous/ill pregnancy, I took a couple prescription medications during pregnancy, I drank caffeine with Nutrasweet—and plenty of other kids with similar issues were the product of healthy 9-month pregnancies. There’s no evidence linking any of it together.
My mother is 64 and she is still convinced that I’m an inch shorter than my sister because she got pregnant too soon after my sister and her “womb was depleted,” and that I was worse off because she stopped nursing me earlier in order to go on the pill. If that were the case, would I be so effing smart? I’m thinking brain development would’ve suffered at least as much as physical, and yet my brain kicks ass. I sure as hell don’t hold my mom responsible for any health issues I have.
Jules is spot on. “I’m so sorry” is almost always the appropriate thing to say.
History Mom (#66) isn’t necessarily right that Tylenol’s all a pregnant woman can take for migraines. My doctor prescribed Fioricet (Tylenol, caffeine, and a mild barbiturate that doesn’t seem to get any use other than in combo headache medicines) when I was pregnant, and it made a huge difference for the nasty headaches I got.
Nobody knows if my kid’s minor issues are related to anything in particular. He was a preemie, I had a dangerous/ill pregnancy, I took a couple prescription medications during pregnancy, I drank caffeine with Nutrasweet—and plenty of other kids with similar issues were the product of healthy 9-month pregnancies. There’s no evidence linking any of it together.
My mother is 64 and she is still convinced that I’m an inch shorter than my sister because she got pregnant too soon after my sister and her “womb was depleted,” and that I was worse off because she stopped nursing me earlier in order to go on the pill. If that were the case, would I be so effing smart? I’m thinking brain development would’ve suffered at least as much as physical, and yet my brain kicks ass. I sure as hell don’t hold my mom responsible for any health issues I have.
I’m curious if older generations had to put up with this level of intrusiveness, or if this is a newer phenomena.
It sort of seems like a method for getting the wimmins to put the collar back on. For the good of the children, you understand.
I wasn’t acosted with “advice” as much as others, but I was oviously pissed during my pregnancies. Every. Single. One.
I’m not a nice pregnant person. I pity the fool that stood between me and my medium rare filet. Or my coffee.
PIATOR - to echo the others - if something goes wrong with your child, the mother, or more likely the parents, are going to wonder if they did something wrong regardless of whether they followed all the proscriptions they knew about or not.
Just like if I had miscarried, my coworker would have been sure it was due to my dastardly habit of carrying things I could heft in one hand.
Believe me, PiaToR, after our daughter was diagnosed with autism, I did ALOT of wondering “what I have done” to cause her condition. I tried to take as good care of myself as I possibly could and having already had one fine pregnancy and healthy daughter, had no reason to think anything would be different for my second pregnancy and daughter.
And Dianne, we have NO family history whatsoever on either side. So much for 90%…
BTW- ambulances and fire trucks are also “evil carbon monoxide spewing, pedestrian endangering pieces of junk.” And if you live anywhere in the USA, you’d be shit out of luck to have ANYTHING you own if it weren’t for 18 wheelers. So guess they aren’t all evil, huh?
If you do everything “right,” if you do everything the doctor tells you, even the stuff that contradicts the other stuff, and your kid winds up with an abnormality anyway, you’re still going to wonder if maybe some Thou Shalt Not (The Pregnant Lady Edition) slipped past you, or if some study will come out in the next few years to tell you what you did wrong.
Right. But we’re not talking about “doing everything right” or a future study. We’re talking about overlooking (supposed) risk factors for the sake of actually having a life while pregnant. And while you can tell someone that what they did “almost certainly” had nothing to do with the outcome, or that “these things happen” - it’s not going to stop them beating themselves up.
There’s literally no end to the permutations of the Let’s Blame Mom game.
I’m not worried about the Let’s Blame Mum game; I’m talking about the Let’s Blame Myself game, Motherhood Edition (which I’ve seen happen). It’s not good.
Most women are sensible. When, at month 5, I started getting sick every morning, I did what any sane woman does. I eliminated one breakfast item each day until I found the culprit. Normally, my culprit is orange juice. This time it was coffee. I had no coffee from month 5 until after the kid made his exit.
Is coffee bad for fetuses? I have no idea. It was surely unpleasant for me, however, so that settled the question.
Most of us have bodies that make their wants known. They are a lot more reliable than the most recent findings of any sort.
Seven pregnancies, two live births. Didn’t drink any coffee in the first trimester of the two “good” pregnancies because just the smell of coffee made me want to throw up. Didn’t eat fried food (or much of anything except Vietnamese Pho), for the same reason. The not so successful pregnancies were characterized by a complete lack of nausea and food aversions. So I suppose someone could argue that drinking coffee (or eating bacon) caused my miscarriages, but perhaps those pregnancies were doomed anyway, so the hormones never took over and made me feel like hurling every day.
“We’re talking about overlooking (supposed) risk factors for the sake of actually having a life while pregnant. And while you can tell someone that what they did “almost certainly” had nothing to do with the outcome, or that “these things happen” - it’s not going to stop them beating themselves up.”
And playing to the meme that it was her responsibility to single-handedly counteract everything we as a society have done to the environment and our food and water supply will? But trying to counteract the cultural insistence that every negative outcome of pregnancy must be the fault of the pregnant woman, who Failed In Her Sacred Duty, won’t?
“I’m not worried about the Let’s Blame Mum game; I’m talking about the Let’s Blame Myself game, Motherhood Edition (which I’ve seen happen). It’s not good.”
So, do you think that perpetuating the idea that everything that goes wrong with a pregnancy can be traced to something the pregnant woman did or didn’t do makes it better, or worse?
Seriously, though, do you have any idea how many (contradictory) studies there are out there telling women that, essentially, continuing to breathe air during their pregnancy is putting their fetus at risk? Do you have any idea how much the fanfare over questionable studies and pressure to not only somehow divine which is right but also not deviate one whit from their dictates increases the stress and regret parents feel when there’s a negative outcome? Hint: if somebody, anybody, wants to find fault with the pregnant woman/mother, she didn’t make the right choice.
People who tell women that they don’t have to feel guilty about not hermetically sealing themselves into a bubble and running complex chemical analyses on anything they come into contact with aren’t the problem. People who point out that women are actually human beings and not disposable pods from which babies issue are not the problem. People who underline the fact that there are a lot of assholes who take enormous satisfaction in fucking with women who are at their most vulnerable aren’t the problem. People who don’t act like a woman who miscarries or gives birth to a baby with an abnormality is a willfully malfunctioning appliance? Not the problem. People who are trying to change society so that women aren’t automatically wrong, no matter what they do? Not the fucking problem.
Trying to play devil’s advocate against the position that advocates women taking–or being forced to accept–less erroneous responsibility onto themselves is pretty much an asshole proposition through and through.
Then there is the possibility that if a mother does not expose her fetus to some toxins and environmental pathogens, she will end up with a child is abnormally susceptible to disease. Best to be moderate, proportional and considerate in your advice to pregnant women.
So, do you think that perpetuating the idea that everything that goes wrong with a pregnancy can be traced to something the pregnant woman did or didn’t do makes it better, or worse?
Er, Mantis, I thought I was making it clear that I wasn’t spreading that idea when I made teh comment: “And while you can tell someone that what they did “almost certainly” had nothing to do with the outcome, or that “these things happen” - it’s not going to stop them beating themselves up.“.
As always, people read what they want to read, regardless of what is actually written.
Seriously, though, do you have any idea how many (contradictory) studies there are out there telling women that, essentially, continuing to breathe air during their pregnancy is putting their fetus at risk?
With my job, I have a fair idea, yes (he says, dryly).
Then there is the possibility that if a mother does not expose her fetus to some toxins and environmental pathogens, she will end up with a child is abnormally susceptible to disease.
I think that’s more related to children, giving them a chance to develop their immune systems. I haven’t seen anything relating this to pre-natal exposure; do you have a cite?
I’m not worried about the Let’s Blame Mum game; I’m talking about the Let’s Blame Myself game, Motherhood Edition (which I’ve seen happen). It’s not good.
And yet, by “playing devil’s advocate,” that’s exactly what you did. It’s not “playing devil’s advocate” to repeat the exact same message that pregnant women are already constantly getting from every angle.
I haven’t seen anything relating this to pre-natal exposure; do you have a cite?
I admit I don’t. I’m not sure its true and not sure its false.
My younger sister went through all kinds of agony trying to conceive; there was one month where she tested positive, only to get her period a few days later. She was usually pretty stoic about it, since it happened so often, but this time just did her in. My brother-in-law found her crying–and, of course, blaming herself. “I shouldn’t have had that second glass of wine the other night.” To her shock, he started laughing–and said the most sensible thing I have ever heard to say in response to all these alarmists:
“Honey, 14-year-old girls on crack get pregnant every day.”
@ the Empress of Ice Cream: I did something similar. After my first miscarriage I was crying over having dared to take a bubble bath.
Now I just ignore all of that crap and try to be as healthy as makes sense to me. Hopefully the next pregnancy gives me a baby (instead of goo)
If you want to see a much better written article on this study, go look at this Boston Globe article. There you’ll find that another study about caffeine came out within the past month and that study found that if you drank two or fewer cups of coffee, or so, there was no elevated risk. The Globe article comes to the conclusion that it’s now fairly certain that high levels of caffeine probably do increase the risk of miscarriage, low levels are no problem, and where the cutoff is is uncertain. The article concludes that one or two cups is probably fine–in other words, just what you might have guessed, in moderation caffeine is fine.
And yet, by “playing devil’s advocate,” that’s exactly what you did.
*sigh*
I disagree.
Seriously now, you take a guy whose wife is pregnant and the health people all say she shouldn’t [drink coffee / eat fried grouper / drink Bourbon / eat brie] so she’s got to put her favorite thing aside for the duration. Now what kind of total loser isn’t going to voluntarily give up the same thing by way of moral support?
Guys?
@ashley:
Or try crack.
(just kidding.)
I think Dr. Li is just one of millions of doctors who seem to think that it must be easy if a patient could do it for herself (or her fetus). If it were hard, obviously, it would take a trained medical professional to do it. Give up the most common addiction in the world? No problem. There is widespread belittling of patients by medical professionals, which is magnified in a misogynistic culture that worships the fetii.
Now tell me what I really want to know: how many women miscarry or deliver low-birthweight babies because they can’t afford health care?
Regarding Listeria:
Alas, no. That would be true if all the cases of listeria came from contamination before the milk was sent to the cheese factory. But several of the big epidemics of cheese-based listeria (all of dozens of cases) have been the result of bad hygiene in cheese manufacturing and distribution, where pasteurization was no use at all. (In fact, pasteurization slightly increased the risk, because unpasteurized cheese contains bugs and enzymes that can inhibit listeria growth. Whee.)
Maybe I’m doing my numbers wrong, but a first cut at this study seems to indicate that the statistical uncertainty pretty much renders the abstainer and 200-mg results indistinguishable.
“Er, Mantis, I thought I was making it clear that I wasn’t spreading that idea when I made teh comment: “And while you can tell someone that what they did “almost certainly” had nothing to do with the outcome, or that “these things happen” - it’s not going to stop them beating themselves up.“.”
Well, first, no, you didn’t really make it clear. You seemed to be placing quite a bit of emphasis on the “What if women go hogwild and then regret it after the fact when their baby has problems–your little message won’t help them then.” potential.
Considering that you really can’t ever have done enough to escape blame, from yourself or others, raising that possibility doesn’t seem particularly productive. The woman who gives the finger to all those naysayers who tell her not to drink coffee or have a glass of wine or lift more than ten pounds and then miscarries is not liable to feel a measure of guilt that the woman who gave up all that but still took a hot bath or took a brisk walk or lifted five pounds won’t. There isn’t a set of behaviors that will inoculate you against the culturally-pushed message that you did something wrong or this wouldn’t be happening. Trying to conform to the social commandments of pregnancy is trying to hit a target that’s not only moving, but in a different place for every person.
And second, there’s a distinct difference in how a message is taken if it’s offered before the fact, to be considered rationally and internalized over time, and when it’s offered after the fact, as consolation to someone in the throes of self-blame. The first is a competing idea, something that has a chance of counteracting the broader cultural message that anything that goes wrong is the mother’s fault. The second is something that will often be recognized as or colored by the perception that it’s just a polite fiction–what people say to make you feel better regardless of whether it’s true or they believe it.
I was told recently, and very matter of factly, that women in their third trimester couldn’t drive a car. Pretty soon it’ll be so that if you get pregnant, you’re locked in the house with bottled water, vitamin supplements and stupid pregnancy guides until you give birth.
Gosh,.. I’ve heard that poverty isn’t too good for pregnancy either but I don’t see the medical establishment or government getting into much of an uproar about THAT…
And yeah I experienced the same thing during pregnancy with my co-workers making comments if I drank a soda or ate a piece of fish. It was incredible.
Giving a big fuck-you to the Let’s Blame Mom game shouldn’t mean assuming that there’s no point in being careful or thoughtful at all. Yes, it’s true that one sip of wine isn’t going to kill your baby and people who say “don’t drive!” are morons.
But equally moronic is the argument that it’s OK to drink whatever, do whatever, eat whatever regardless of your family history or whether there is some correlation between whatever and prenatal problems because, gosh, women have been giving birth forEVER and my great-grandma smoked like a chimney and drank like a fish and she had twenty healthy boys!
When I was pregnant and subject to all that “helpful” advice from complete strangers, I found that a simple “F*ck off” helped.
(It does seem that swearing is more socially acceptable in New Zealand than it is in the US and elsewhere, so this handy tip may not work so well elsewhere.)
ancedote: my mom drank a fuckton of caffeine during her pregnancy, and I have a sensitivity, and can’t enjoy the lovely coffee that others enjoy. so keep it to less than 5 cups a day, and you’ll be fine, based on ancedata*
*not serious medical advice. not meant to treat or cure any diseases.
Orange@68: “Thoughtless people post-miscarriage who assure you “I’m sure it happened for a reason. You’re better off this way” or “Maybe you’re just not meant to have children.””
While it sucks that people said that to you–a lot–and I’m completely horrified, it does occur to me to wonder if the same people who told you that were pro-lifers who think life starts at conception, and if so, if they would say something similar to a person who lost a child who had already been born. Because to them it’s the same situation, right?
mythago - I really can’t think of any instances of anyone advocating pregnant women getting stinking drunk regularly, or drinking coffee by the gallon, or any such thing. There have been anecdotes about women who did these things and had normal babies, but that’s not the same thing as advocating the behavior.
OTOH - there are a metric shitload of people out there willing to look daggers at, or publicly scold pregnant women for doing things in public that are perfectly harmless in moderation. And large numbers of doctors or other authorities perfectly ready to advise them to give up their lives for nine months if it gives the fetus a 1/1,000,000 chance of being healthier - or even might do so.
If I were to want to get pregnant any time soon, I’d probably quit the caffeine at the time that my husband and I decided we were gonna try. But you know what? I’m one of the lucky ones who can give up caffeine. I know this from experience: when I go cold turkey, I get three days of crippling withdrawal headaches in the early afternoon, and then I’m fine.
I know of some people who had to go cold turkey and experienced these headaches for weeks. I can’t fathom putting up with them for more than a few days. I mean, look, there’s a reason why caffeine is in migraine pills!
So if I were to be so rude as to give unasked for advice, I’d say, try going cold turkey some time before you actually get pregnant, and see what happens. Try it in advance of a weekend when you can afford to be absolutely unproductive and miserable. If withdrawal continues longer than you can bear to put up with it, don’t freakin’ torture yourself! And if the Mommy Police show up every time you have your necessary-to-survival morning cup, smile at them sweetly and say, “Are you my doctor? No? Then shut the fuck up, sweetie.”
And if you’re convinced there’s no good reason to give up the java, then don’t even bother with the experiment.
In case it isn’t obvious: this is me saying what I would do. Your mileage may vary. I’m not a mother, I haven’t been through this, I wouldn’t presume to do more than say “this sounds like a good plan for me to follow should I ever have a wanted pregnancy.”
To a certain extent, yes, being a mother begins when one says, “This pregnancy is wanted; this fetus will be my child.” And being a mother involves protecting the child from poisons. But there’s only so much you can protect a child from, and only so many things we can conclusively say are poisons. As to what those things are, I think women have brains enough to get informed and make that call themselves.
ps. Buddha-belly-rubbers? Jeez… I can pretty much guarantee that anyone trying that with me gets a broken wrist. Ask the last person who put a hand on my butt at a standing-room-only concert.
Generally I’d be inclined to think that the wondrous mechanism known as morning sickness will activate to disincline the pregnant women from imbibing what is harmful to their situation.
What REALLY pisses me off and led me to totally challenge an international colleague in an open session of a public health conference is the idea that women should limit, or should be limited in their activities because of factors that are not under direct personal control.
My issue? Exposure to air pollution is increasingly linked to reduced fetal growth in utero. HOWEVER, the answer is NOT to say that pregnant women shouldn’t commute or should “avoid air pollution” - meaning: live in wealthy communities away from traffic and not have jobs to commute to or else they are bad mothers.
The solution is to REDUCE THE GODDAMN AIR POLLUTION ALREADY!
But, but that would mean corporate responsibility and public infrastructure! We can’t do that … we gots to blame it on the mothers!
My Pregnant Woman Wish:
You wake up, then have a cup of coffee (heat the milk–it makes all the difference) and eat it with a gorgeous sticky bun, dripping with luscious, nutty wetness and bypassing the imposed, embittered puritanism. (It’s your snatch, and that bun is all kinds of juicy & welcoming–hello, you must want to kiss my pussy, as I have a bun in my oven–let us all be merry!) but the world hates your merry cunt. So fuck the world and hold your bun that much closer.
Maybe you puke; maybe you crave (as my sister did) lashings and lashings of sugar–whatever your path, fuck those voices lecturing and hectoring you. Eat whatever your mouth can wrap itself around (be it coffee or crackers or cake) and what your body can raise a hunger for–because your body is now humanity central, and it’s not up for negotiation.
You read (and read and read and read) and then reject what doesn’t seem true to you, while accepting what seems beyond mere opinion. So enjoy every bite, and tell the fetus-waiting-to-become-a-child-within how fucking good it tastes (cinnamon crunching under your back teeth, icing swirling round your tongue, coffee melting all of it into a perfect whole) and then lick the plate if you want to–it’s your moment, nobody else’s–and when the baby comes, smile your Mama smile, ignore the pissing and moaning from all those who “know better” and then move forward into your own sweet self.
Fuck the nattering world—a full fledged human being crawled out of your wide-open cunt, so please, spare us all the sanctimonious bullshit.
And that’s my wish to you all (from a woman who never wanted to birth children, but to adopt them) and I hope you all find your own true way, without feeling hounded and bitched into submission. All of us are beautiful–despite our self hatred–and none of us are as dumb as we are painted. Having babies (or not bringing fetuses to term–god bless Roe V Wade) is a measure of how smart and self-willing and focused we are, not proof of our need to be corraled and corrected and guided.
Damn, lola. That was beautiful.
So impressed with Lola. Ditto to Nicole.
Lola, you well and truly rock!
I would also point out, that the fetus is most susceptible to in the first trimester, when many women don’t realize they’re pregnant.
The reporting on the caffeine study was nearly hysterical on CNN yesterday. They were actually advising women who were *planning* to become pregnant to cut the caffeine.
The health scolds seem determined to take all the joy out of giving birth.
Not to excessively nitpick, but the developing human isn’t even a fetus for much of the first trimester.
Embryonic humans don’t have any contact with maternal blood. They live off a yolk sack while they grow a placenta.
I’m involved in an international research collaboration involving fetal development. The way these things are stated with such certainty by the media and even by those here - what the hazards are, what the timing is, etc. - boggles my mind! We know that certain things are bad in a vague way, but we really don’t know what is bad for what reason and when and why!!! If the same threshold of certainty applied to other hazards - say, poverty or industrial pollution - we would see much more prompt action to eliminate the causes. But if it is something a pregnant woman does …
In other words, the first trimester hazards (lets say “third month” when it is more a fetus) are different and affect different systems of growth than hazards closer to birth. Miscarriage for genetic and developmental reasons is pretty common during the first trimester, but that doesn’t mean it had anything to do with exposures. To say that period is the most hazardous is completely and totally unfounded - better studied, perhaps, but certainly not borne out by the literature. Look up lysterosis some time.
OTOH - there are a metric shitload of people out there willing to look daggers at, or publicly scold pregnant women for doing things in public that are perfectly harmless in moderation.
Why, yes, having BEEN PREGNANT I’m well aware of that. Please see previous reference to how shitty the “it’s all your fault” crap is.
I’m also aware, again having been pregnant, that there is a strong strain of “oh, we’ve been having babies forever, ignore those silly male doctors” thought out there, along with a healthy dose of denial from people who have genuine addiction or behavior problems. (”Some wine” may not mean to you what it means to an alcoholic.)
In other words, a knee jerk OMFG THEY HATE TEH WOMINZ reaction is not all that bright, either. The actual study found a significant correlation between a certain level of caffeine intake and some miscarriages. That’s information pregnant women should have. Of course there are people who are going to blow that up into “if you LOOK at a Starbucks you willl KILL YOUR BABY” but is that a reason to assume the study is BS?
So that’s why my “morning” sickness could immediately be triggered by ingesting broccoli for all 37 weeks I was pregnant?
The right way to do a study like this, of course, would be some kind of randomized crossover where you had women who didn’t consume caffeine before pregnancy and women who did, and compared the miscarriage rate after assigning half of each group to consume or not consume during their first trimester. That would eliminate, for example, the possibility that the gene complex for liking caffeine is associated with increased miscarriage rates. (And yeah, I know such a study would be impossible to do.)
But what this also makes me ask is, medically/genetically speaking, whether there’s necessarily anything wrong with a somewhat higher rate of miscarriages. Unless you’re in the every-egg-is-sacred camp, a miscarriage, especially an early one, is sad on one level but also a sign that the potential parents have avoided bringing into the world an infant with serious malformations incompatible with meaningful life.
Paul, that entirely depends on why the miscarriage happened.
If the miscarriage happened because the baby would not have had any lungs, then great. The sooner that miscarriage occurs, the better. However, the point to studies of substances is that it’s assumed the substance is poisoning an otherwise healthy embryo. In that case, the miscarriage of a wanted pregnancy is a tragedy, because there was nothing wrong with the fetus when it was conceived.
I’m actually glad this study had not come out four years ago. I don’t drink a lot of caffeine, because I’m sensitive to it so I don’t need a lot. But I do need what I take. And after my first miscarriage I was utterly paranoid about another one, so I would have attempted to cut caffeine entirely. For me the problem would not have been withdrawal symptoms, it would have been the return of the condition th caffeine was correcting — the fatigue. I was badly fatigued enough while pregnant — without caffeine I’d have gotten even less done.
Sovay, whoever told you that third trimester pregnant women cannot drive a car is a moron; it is highly uncomfortable to *sit* in a car for too long if you suffer from Braxton-Hicks false contractions, but as long as you gotta sit in the car you may as well drive it. It is uncomfortable to adjust your seatbelt properly but again, that’s a sit in the car issue, and you can occasionally irritate your stomach by rubbing the steering wheel against it if you lean forward the wrong way, but this is sufficiently minor that forbidding people to drive a car would be fucking insane.
And who does all this tummy rubbing? No one ever *touched* my tummy when I was pregnant. I got lots and lots of positive comments from total strangers and many offers of help for carrying stuff I really *shouldn’t* have been carrying, but I never got the stinkeye for my food or drink choices (of course I’m a non-smoking teetotaler, but no one ever whined at me that I should eat healthy for the baby) and no one ever touched me. Is this common where I live (Baltimore, shopping and eating out in the suburbs and in the city proper) or was I just really lucky?
Phoenician: Of course, to play the Devil’s Advocate, if you do whatever you want while pregnant and your kid shows up autistic, or physically damaged, or even just a bit slow, you’ll be spending the rest of your life wondering “what if?” and “If only I hadn’t…”
It’s the same in all debates on security tradeoffs. But the fear of having to say “If only I had kept my kid locked in the cupboard under the stairs he wouldn’t have got run over by a car” is not helpful in making good decisions.
I kind of hate to say it, but who really cares about miscarriage, other than the parents? If caffeine is linked to permanent fetal abnormalities, then ok, encourage women to give up caffeine. It’s better for them and better for children. But this study only shows a link between caffeine and miscarriages. There’s no societal interest in cutting down on spontaneous abortions, unless you believe that everything from a zygote to a third trimester fetus is a person.
Ashley - so dead on. 2 m/c and 1 s/b and still, no live, healthy baby to show for it. Fuck it, right now, as I see it, I might as well do a line of coke - hey, maybe then I can actually carry a pregnancy to term?
I was at the maternal-fetal medicine specialist’s office yesterday. While they still can’t tell me why the crackhead can carry a baby to term and have a live delivery and I, who followed all their little rules, cannot - he did say one thing that I thought was useful. Paraphrased - the human body is meant to withstand and reproduce through all sorts of harshness and cruelty, yet to create life and sustain it past the first trimester is a very delicate and fragile thing. I take this as, “Fuck it. Have the stupid Diet Coke, Coca-Cola, chocolate, fish, cheese, wahtever. You can’t control it with minor shit like this.”
And BTW, I give up on the whole pregnancy thing. Just. Can’t. Do. It. Any. More.
I went to a prenatal class at my local Kaiser yesterday and they’re already preaching that pregnant women have to cut the coffee & soda altogether. Never mind that the study was more specific - recommending avoid more than 1 1/2 cups of coffee per day before 20 weeks.
Hell with that - I’m going to have my morning coffee & maybe another coffee during the day if I damn well want it.
And (ooh, sin!) I had *a* glass of wine for Thanksgiving and *a* glass of wine for Christmas and I’ll be having *a* glass of wine next month for my birthday. Guess I’m a BAAAAD person.
This is just anecdata here, but in my limited experience, pro-choicers tend to be far more compassionate towards women who’ve lost a wanted pregnancy than pro-lifers. And significantly less prone to making tactless and hurtful remarks. Could be I just know an unusually high proportion of nice pro-choicers, but I throw out the observation anyway.
When I was a teenager, there was a lady at our church who was involved in anti-abortion activism (mostly outside the church, but she’d talk about it at church sometimes). The way she’d go on about those poor dead fetuses you’d think she would be draped in black if she heard about a miscarriage. But another woman at the church miscarried, and was publicly very upset about it, and she said some godawful insensitive stuff right in the middle of coffee hour. It seemed she was only concerned about dead fetuses when they offered an opportunity for her to harangue the previously pregnant woman. If the woman actually wanted the baby (and to quote Mark Foxwell, it’s a baby if the pregnant woman wants it to be a baby), her loss didn’t even register with Mrs Pro-Life.
Salem LJ, my heart goes out to you. So much of the craziness around things likes this boils down to there’s so much we don’t understand, and can’t control, and it sucks. People like to try to pretend they can control everything, and can be terrible moralistic twits because they can’t accept this.
Now it turns out that caffeine may help avoid ovarian cancer. Talk about a rock and a hard place…
My advice, if anyone cares: Tune 99% of these studies out. They’re all done on an observational basis (they have to be, since you can’t lock people up and forcibly give them a potentially unhealthy diet—at least, not on purpose) and so can’t fully use the scientific method.
buried in the NYT coverage of this study was the factoid, previously unknown to me that 16% of pregnancies end in miscarriage…that means a LOT of women are keeping quiet about this.
also, if the study is confirmed, my espresso machine is a factory for abortifacient and a surreptitious way out of a dilemma for women who are not delighted about their little demonstration of fertility.
But most of that 16% is just because rolling the genetic dice, one from dad, one from mom, did not add up to a whole number between 2 and 12 and the machinery kicked out the the 13 or the 5 and 3/4 or whatever. Roll again or change the dice…either way is a pain.
greensmile,
When an egg and a sperm get together, some surprising amount of the time, like 50% or 80% of the time, a live baby doesn’t result after 9 months.
Many of those the woman is not technically pregnant, since pregnancy begins at implantation, not at conception.
“There are two possibilities here: Dr. Li is really that much of a thoughtless asshat, or his quote was taken out of context. Either way—say what?! No downsides?! The only way that there’s no downsides for a caffeine addict to quit drinking coffee altogether is if you believe that women are utterly unimportant, or become so the second they get pregnant.”
Are you serious??? Withdrawal is a downside? Withdrawal is temporary. Perhaps it doesn’t make sense to quit caffeine. After all, why should you if it is not having negative effects? I don’t see the danger in moderation, but why do you see EVERYTHING as somehow related to misogyny? It’s illogical. William pointed this out in the first response. But since all you carry is a hammer, all you see are nails.
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