FiddleFit
Cathlete
Hi there, expectant moms! This article was in our national newspaper today (The Globe and Mail). I found it amusing, and thought some of you might appreciate it as well. Take care!
Sandra
Pregnant ladies: fuel cells of the future
Weight-gain anxiety fuelled by chart-wielding obstetricians could generate some serious heat, but my growing baby needs cookies.
By REBECCA FLEMING
Monday, November 22, 2004 - Page A16
Pregnant women are an underappreciated renewable-energy resource. If we could find a way to harness the weight-gain anxiety of all moms-to-be in the Western Hemisphere, and top that up with the amount of gas they produce, we'd never have to worry about another energy crisis.
I'm talking major kilowattage anxiety here -- it steams up the bathroom the minute the stick is successfully peed upon. No matter what truckload of thoughts and emotions comes to run you over at that moment, the fact that you will, and must, gain weight is conspicuously among them.
The concept of controlled weight gain is a bit of an oxymoron in our society to begin with, not to mention next to impossible to execute. Asking a pregnant lady to gain a set amount of weight is like asking her to let exactly five millilitres of pee out of an excruciatingly full bladder into a tiny cup. And if you overfill the cup, you're not allowed to dump it out. It will be displayed for all to see, to remind you how you've failed.
I overfilled my proverbial cup between obstetrician visits, for which I was smacked with my medical chart. "Ten pounds in four weeks has a bit of a curly tail on it," he said.
My obstetrician was calling me a pig.
"Hitting the Halloween candy a bit hard, eh?" he snorted. I calmly informed him that my weight gain had nothing to do with Halloween candy, thank you very much. It's the oatmeal raisin chocolate-chip cookies I bake every weekend, and let's not forget the fetus I am growing.
"Well no more cookies for you," he said, chart-smacking me again, in case I couldn't feel it through my mounds of fat the first time.
Never mind the fact that I gained a respectable three pounds in my first trimester. Never mind the fact that I go to the gym most days of the week to do laps in the pool or ride the stationary bike. Never mind the fact that I gained three pounds overnight after eating salt-laden Chinese food, the very night before my appointment, and lost two of them by the next day. And certainly never mind the fact that I made it to my first pregnancy, at 33, without an iota of a weight problem, ever. My cup runnethed over, and for that I had to be chart-smacked.
The recommended total pregnancy weight gain these days for a woman starting out at a healthy weight is 25 to 35 pounds. You're supposed to gain more if you're underweight, less if you're overweight. However, published Canadian and American studies suggest that the average gestational weight gain hovers around 35 pounds. Therefore, the average pregnant North American can expect to get chart-smacked by her obstetrician at some point.
What I'd like to see are some chart-smacking statistics on men who pack on an extra pound or two now and then. Give me a nice thick chart, and I'd be happy to even the score and go smack them all, starting with the obstetricians.
I've maintained my weight all these years by listening to my body, eating when I'm hungry, and staying active. But now I'm expected to turn a deaf ear to my body, and listen instead to my chart-wielding obstetrician who implies that I'm a pig? This humiliating admonishment has jacked up my anxiety to nuclear levels. I thought the intent of pregnancy was to nourish and grow a fetus, not to brown it to a crisp with stress.
I concede that there is some degree of medical reason behind gestational weight-gain recommendations. But women don't fit tidily into mathematical models -- nothing organic really does. I may have gone a bit overboard this month, but my gain so far is still within the recommended range for my dates. Micromanagement via humiliation is not good medicine, especially in a population as vulnerable to social pressure as young women.
I could make a fortune hooking myself up to the power grid. And I could really boost my output by surrounding myself with mirrors and scales and judgmental obstetricians and skinny pregnant celebrities. But truthfully, for Babinski's sake, I'd rather not.
Babinski deserves my energy more than anyone. Not the bad kind that comes from guilt and self-doubt. I mean the good kind. The kind that comes from oatmeal raisin chocolate-chip cookies.
Rebecca Fleming is a biologist in Ottawa. She is due in March.
Sandra
Pregnant ladies: fuel cells of the future
Weight-gain anxiety fuelled by chart-wielding obstetricians could generate some serious heat, but my growing baby needs cookies.
By REBECCA FLEMING
Monday, November 22, 2004 - Page A16
Pregnant women are an underappreciated renewable-energy resource. If we could find a way to harness the weight-gain anxiety of all moms-to-be in the Western Hemisphere, and top that up with the amount of gas they produce, we'd never have to worry about another energy crisis.
I'm talking major kilowattage anxiety here -- it steams up the bathroom the minute the stick is successfully peed upon. No matter what truckload of thoughts and emotions comes to run you over at that moment, the fact that you will, and must, gain weight is conspicuously among them.
The concept of controlled weight gain is a bit of an oxymoron in our society to begin with, not to mention next to impossible to execute. Asking a pregnant lady to gain a set amount of weight is like asking her to let exactly five millilitres of pee out of an excruciatingly full bladder into a tiny cup. And if you overfill the cup, you're not allowed to dump it out. It will be displayed for all to see, to remind you how you've failed.
I overfilled my proverbial cup between obstetrician visits, for which I was smacked with my medical chart. "Ten pounds in four weeks has a bit of a curly tail on it," he said.
My obstetrician was calling me a pig.
"Hitting the Halloween candy a bit hard, eh?" he snorted. I calmly informed him that my weight gain had nothing to do with Halloween candy, thank you very much. It's the oatmeal raisin chocolate-chip cookies I bake every weekend, and let's not forget the fetus I am growing.
"Well no more cookies for you," he said, chart-smacking me again, in case I couldn't feel it through my mounds of fat the first time.
Never mind the fact that I gained a respectable three pounds in my first trimester. Never mind the fact that I go to the gym most days of the week to do laps in the pool or ride the stationary bike. Never mind the fact that I gained three pounds overnight after eating salt-laden Chinese food, the very night before my appointment, and lost two of them by the next day. And certainly never mind the fact that I made it to my first pregnancy, at 33, without an iota of a weight problem, ever. My cup runnethed over, and for that I had to be chart-smacked.
The recommended total pregnancy weight gain these days for a woman starting out at a healthy weight is 25 to 35 pounds. You're supposed to gain more if you're underweight, less if you're overweight. However, published Canadian and American studies suggest that the average gestational weight gain hovers around 35 pounds. Therefore, the average pregnant North American can expect to get chart-smacked by her obstetrician at some point.
What I'd like to see are some chart-smacking statistics on men who pack on an extra pound or two now and then. Give me a nice thick chart, and I'd be happy to even the score and go smack them all, starting with the obstetricians.
I've maintained my weight all these years by listening to my body, eating when I'm hungry, and staying active. But now I'm expected to turn a deaf ear to my body, and listen instead to my chart-wielding obstetrician who implies that I'm a pig? This humiliating admonishment has jacked up my anxiety to nuclear levels. I thought the intent of pregnancy was to nourish and grow a fetus, not to brown it to a crisp with stress.
I concede that there is some degree of medical reason behind gestational weight-gain recommendations. But women don't fit tidily into mathematical models -- nothing organic really does. I may have gone a bit overboard this month, but my gain so far is still within the recommended range for my dates. Micromanagement via humiliation is not good medicine, especially in a population as vulnerable to social pressure as young women.
I could make a fortune hooking myself up to the power grid. And I could really boost my output by surrounding myself with mirrors and scales and judgmental obstetricians and skinny pregnant celebrities. But truthfully, for Babinski's sake, I'd rather not.
Babinski deserves my energy more than anyone. Not the bad kind that comes from guilt and self-doubt. I mean the good kind. The kind that comes from oatmeal raisin chocolate-chip cookies.
Rebecca Fleming is a biologist in Ottawa. She is due in March.
