Reply to Did anyone else drink a small amount while pregnant?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I really don't see the point in these threads. You either believe it's fine or you don't. You aren't going to change anyone's mind. Arguing about it and name calling is pointless. Just let people believe what they want. [/quote]

I hate super contentious threads so normally I’d agree with you.

But this is how/when the mommy shaming starts. It’s so intense during pregnancy. I had people at work say “I hope that’s decaf!” and then unload a bunch of [false, not scientific] beliefs about caffeine and pregnancy if they merely saw me with a to-go cup from Starbucks (ironically, I don’t like the taste of coffee, so it was often a hot cocoa).

Same with what you eat, whether you drink alcohol at all, how much you exercise but also how you exercise (some people deeming certain exercise as too rigorous or dangerous). Then it’s how you give birth, whether you are medicated or not. Do you lose weight quickly or at all? Are you breastfeeding, and if so, are you doing it wrong? Is your baby dressed for the weather according to people with conflicting attitudes about how to do this? Where does your baby sleep? Are you staying home, getting a nanny, sending to daycare?

There are people who treat every one of these choices, many of which aren’t even really choices for a lot of women, as a chance to judge, scold, and condescend.

If posting here that I drank alcohol and caffeinated beverages during pregnancy with my doctor’s blessing and no issues helps another woman to feel better about her choices, and more aware of the actual science and risks, as opposed to just shaming and fear mongering, then it’s worth it. A lot of women feel alone in this. The voices of reason should be as loud as the shaming, at least.[/quote]

This is the best post I’ve ever seen on DCUM[/quote]

+1 this is also why I respond. And actually why frequently I would intentionally do things that were on the 'naughty' list but for stupid reasons. People like to say, 'its only 9 months, what is the harm in following all these rules for 9 months?'

But that attitude doesn't deal with how pregnant women are dehumanized and treated like vessels who's only purpose is to produce a healthy child and how that effects the mental health of mom. They don't understand half the things that happen to pregnant women, they just assume every drug is bad and so pregnant women are frequently not medicated for extremely painful of uncomfortable experiences. Frequently, they are told they are crazy or exaggerating, you can ask women with hyperemesis about how the nurses tell them its all in their heads while they're hanging IV fluids in an ER because the woman's pee is brown. It all stems from the same seed, which is that a woman that will not endure ANYTHING for their child is a bad mother.

And there is some truth to this, I endured much to bring them into this world and I do thing that a core part of parenthood is some sacrifice, but people use that kernel of truth to treat women like walking incubators and not much more and it is so so bad for women and mothers. So I will take a sip of my husband's beer at a party and dare someone to say something to me about it. [/quote]

This. I drank bee in front of my mom while pregnant for this reason. I don’t even live near my mom, but my sisters and SILs do, and she is sooooo judgmental about everything they do. Sipping a beer in front of my mom, having her get flustered, and then calmly explaining that a few sips of alcohol now and then while pregnant is no big deal, forces her to deal with how she judged the women in her family endlessly. And gives those women a little more room to be human.

It would have been easy to refrain from drinking during the couple weeks I was around my mom while pregnant. But drinking a little around her had zero effect on my baby but a positive effect on my mom and other women in my family. One of my SILs even told me later that having me educate my mom a bit made her second pregnancy a lot easier. And she wound up breastfeeding for longer because my mom was more chill about telling her how to do it, which gave my SIL room to figure it out and find confidence on her own.[/quote]

+1000 to all of the above. The only thing that will bring people off their women-policing high is when women refuse to be policed.  And when women who are well educated, economically privileged and professionally successful allow themselves to be policed imagine how hard it is for women who *aren’t* to avoid nonsensical shaming.  I will say that my otherwise extremely judgmental mother in law was the least difficult on this because she’s spent years living overseas and knows this fixation on policing pregnant women is an American thing, not a “good parenting” thing. [/quote]

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