Does anyone else find it strange that the medical profession advises pregnant women to not sleep on their backs for the second half of their pregnancy ... and yet you labor on your back for hours on end, at least in America? It is a strange country when the easier angle for the doctor takes precedent over the mother's comfort and gravity's advantage.
"If you roll onto your back while sleeping, don't panic!" If you are freaking out, you take advice books way too seriously. They used to tell women to smoke and drink diet colas so they would only gain 15 pounds. Come on! Old and outdated information by the pass of each generation.
Nowadays, they also prefer you sleep on your left side toujours, not the right. This wasn't the practice for the past generation, and I wonder if it will still be true in the next generation. I can just imagine my kids saying, "yeah? Well my mom thought she could only sleep on her left side!" Better safe than sorry, so I do, but I certainly don't "panic" when I walk up in the wrong position. Besides, with this bladder, I've been waking up every 2 or 3 hours anyway.
I'm tired of professionals perpetuating and often profiting off of the fear factor. I've read pregnancy advice books where the section on things that happen to one-in-a-million is thicker than the actual description of what's going on with you and your baby. They play into your deepest fears so their pockets get heavier. What if, what if, what if is probably just as bad as if "if" actually was.
I'm checking out waterbirthing for the first stages of labor. The birthing center has a large tub specifically for that purpose, and I've heard it helps with back pain.
I had a two-hour meeting today on what our department was planning to accomplish this week ... immediately followed by a 45-minute meeting on what the whole staff was planning for the week. I told them my plans were to plan what I'm going to do this week. At this rate, it might take me all week to accomplish something.
Hubby just got home. I'm working my way through the Harry Potter series, now on book 5 ... although tonight I think we'll veg out and watch Biggest Loser. That show just sucks me in for some reason.
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I have never understood the idea of women laboring on their backs, unless of course it feels right (I wouldn't know). But I'm a strong believer in gravity, and a natural skeptic, and it just doesn't seem natural.
I second that!
I took a sociology of health and illness class at Emory and was mystified by the way we do so many things in our medicalized society. Tell someone that you're having a home birth nowadays and they look at you as though you've just said that you're planning to feed your newborn a diet consisting entirely of kittens. It makes no sense.
Sorry for the slew of comments all at once, but I've been out of blogland for a while, and I'm catching up.
Have a good one!
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