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Debunking Common Pregnancy Myths
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By Kelly D. Burgess
Wendy Miles, a resident of Allison Park, Pa., knew the sex of her
oldest children before they were born. Not through the science of
ultrasound or amniocentesis, but through the much older method of
the wedding ring swing.
"My mother's friend had a method that she said had never been
wrong," Miles recalls. "She had me tie my wedding ring
on a piece of thread, then my husband held it suspended over my
belly. The friend predicted by the ring's movement what I was having.
She was right both times, but, personally, I still think it was
luck."
Since then, Miles has had one more child. That time, her mother's
friend wasn't around to do the wedding ring test, so Miles' mother
did the predicting instead – based on how Miles was carrying
the baby. She, too, was right, but, in spite of their track record,
Miles isn't any more convinced of the legitimacy of either of those
methods.
Researchers at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health found
that Miles is right to be skeptical. In the September 1999 issue
of the journal Birth, they asked 104 pregnant women to use whatever
method they liked, including folklore, dreams and hunches, to guess
their unborn child's sex. The women were right 55 percent of the
time – about the same as would occur for a random guess.
What the research didn't note was that the idea is not necessarily
to be right, and not many people will start painting the nursery
in pink or blue based on how their wedding ring twirls. Most pregnancy
myths are just the opportunity to have a little fun. Others can
be more harmful.
When Jen Kissel, who lives in Pennsylvania, told people she was
going to have her babies delivered at a birthing center by midwives,
she was told, variously, that midwives are witches, and that her
babies would be born with cleft palates, without faces or dead.
She was appalled that people could be so ignorant and insensitive.
Lori Albright, who, as a certified nurse midwife at The Midwife
Center for Birth and Women's Health in Pittsburgh, Pa., delivered
Kissel's three healthy, perfect babies, wasn't surprised. In the
13 years she's worked as a midwife, she's heard it all. Here's what
she has to say about the most common myths of pregnancy:
If a mother has a lot of indigestion, the baby will have a lot
of hair. This is one Albright hears a lot and is happy to debunk.
"I've seen plenty of mothers with terrible indigestion give
birth to very bald babies," she says.
A woman should always lie on her left side during pregnancy. While
it's true that lying on the left side improves placental and kidney
profusion, the problem is that sometimes a woman will take it too
far and end up with sores. Albright says if they have a mother with
high blood pressure, they recommend that she lie on her left side
for about 10 minutes twice a day. Otherwise, a woman should lie
in whatever position is comfortable for her.
Umbilical cord myths. There are several such myths, the most common
being that a pregnant woman shouldn't put her arms over her head
because the cord will wrap around the baby's neck. Actually, the
movement of the mother doesn't really affect the umbilical cord
– unless she stands on her head! These ancient myths probably
stem from a primal fear that a baby will be strangled in utero by
the cord, or the cord will kink and cut off the baby's lifeline.
The fact, says Albright, is that the cord is often around the baby's
neck because when a baby is in the proper head down position, that's
the most natural place for the cord to settle. As for kinking, if
it's a healthy pregnancy, the cord is coated with plenty of Wharton's
jelly, which Albright describes as "like good packing peanuts."
This jelly provides so much protection around the vessels, it's
virtually impossible to kink.
A pregnant woman shouldn't take baths. Albright thinks a warm bath
is a wonderful way for anyone to relax – pregnant or not.
The danger is when the water temperature is too hot. In the first
trimester it can cause developmental problems in the fetus, later
in pregnancy it can cause preterm labor. In general, a pregnant
woman should avoid anything that raises her body temperature above
102 or 103 degrees, whether it's hot baths, fevers, or Jacuzzis
and hot tubs. Also, if a pregnant woman is leaking fluid or bleeding,
she should avoid bathing altogether and consult her care provider.
Guessing a baby's gender. These are probably the most prevalent
myths. The wedding ring swing theory has been around for years,
as has the idea that the clue to a baby's sex lies in how the mother
is carrying the baby, or in the rate of the baby's heartbeat. The
oddest may be the Drano experiment. The test calls for the mother
to mix some of her urine with Drano and determine the gender based
on the resultant color. All have been scientifically debunked in
various studies throughout the years, but they seem to thrive anyway.
Jenna Buechel, also a Pennsylvania resident, thinks it's because
people are interested in pregnant women and, often, these well-known
myths are a way for someone to strike up a conversation. She remembers
one particular time when she was in a store and an old woman, after
studying her very carefully, unequivocally announced she was going
to have a boy.
"I already knew it was a girl because I had an ultrasound,"
said Buechel. "But I didn't want to make her feel bad so I
just smiled." Now expecting her third child, Buechel will again
rely on science, not speculation, to end the suspense.
Another thing Buechel can probably rely on is that there will be
plenty of people more than willing to give her their opinion based
on something their mother or grandmother told them. Dr. Michael
Benson, a Chicago-area obstetrician and author of Pregnancy Myths:
An Obstetrician Demystifies Pregnancy from Conception to Birth,
says pregnancy myths are just as prevalent as they've ever been
– even in our enlightened Internet age.
"As long as there has been verbal or written speech, people
have been inclined to turn to myths to make order out of their lives,"
says Dr. Benson. "There is still a lot we don't know about
pregnancy, and as long as people are trying to understand what is
happening to them, there will be myths."
http://pregnancytoday.com/reference/articles/pgmyths.htm
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