Unsolicited advice on pregnancy, babies and parenting
I get it, I really do. People love to dump their advice on you, they always know best. But still, it’s hard now to know whether what I say is considered advice. It’s funny, even though it was only 8 months ago, I can’t really remember how it felt when I was pregnant, having people start talking to me about pregnancy or birth when I hadn’t really asked them.
It’s hard too because there is so much I know now, given all the reading and research I did before the Dude’s arrival. And I’m keen to share it. I can’t help it, I try to keep an ion mind, but I worry for women having babies in hospital, especially first babies. Most simply don’t realise the potential risk of being butchered. They think that because they’re in hospital where there is equipment and doctors and doctors people with experience then things will go as well as they can. Baby gets a bruised head from forceps or has to stay in a humidicrib or the woman can’t go to the toilet without having to be on pain killers but just because the doctor tells them their baby would have died otherwise, they are thankful. Most of the time, complications happen because of too much interference. We know this, the cascade of interventions.
So I want to warn women, help them realise that birth as we know it is totally at odds with a good outcome. But I don’t want to force information on people. And I don’t think I do. But I’m sure people sometimes don’t mention birth to me because they don’t want to hear my take on it. They know I’m going to say something controversial and they just don’t want to get into it.
Anyway, this whole thing stems from something one of my good Melbourne friends Veg said when I was there. We were sitting around, she and her sister (Spanish Queen), and our other friends Perthie and Liv. We got onto the subject of Veg’s baby shower and it soon transpired that she didn’t want one. I said that if anything she could have it and just get lots of presents, especially given she and her partner Punker would be doing it really tough financially as she is the main breadwinner and he’s studying. But she was totally reluctant to even talk about it. Eventually someone suggested that she could have just a get together of her choosing, an afternoon tea or a dinner or a coffee session. “What would you stipulate?” someone asked her. “No unsolicited advice!” she said. I don’t think she was directing this at me but I immediately felt insecure about every conversation we’d ever had since she announced her pregnancy. I think I was being a bit dramatic but I couldn’t help it, I felt like I could never talk to her about babies again! It was weird.
On the plus side, she is booked into a midwife-run birth centre, so here’s hoping she goes into labour spontaneously within a week either side of 40, and that she is negative for all their stupid tests. I sincerely hope the birth is empowering and not medicalised, for her sake and for her baby’s sake. I can’t talk to her about any of it, especially as I totally respect her wishes about unsolicited advice. And she hasn’t asked me for anything, so that’s cool. I just hope she knows I’m here if she needs anything.
