Public Pregnancy

Great Debates
21

The key phrase here may be who will say. Not enough malpractice insurance in the world, babe.

My own dear mother drank one martini each day during my gestation (this being back in the day - she did quit smoking for the occasion, though) which may or may not explain a couple things :slight_smile: but didn’t produce any of the horrors you describe.

Now while I wouldn’t encourage a pregnant woman (or anybody, for that matter)to ingest addictive substances, I suspect the no alcohol instruction is because it’s easier and safer to say NO ALCOHOL than to point out to patients that addictive substance consumption is a medical roulette, depending on a combination of individual genetics and outside factors.

Note to the OP: your neighborhood Starbucks and restaurants may be refusing you service because they’re worried about a lawsuit, rather than personally outraged. I suspect they’re keeping a close eye on the lawsuits that assign blame to tobacco & gun manufacturers and are trying to ward off a suit that begins You KNEW I was pregnant and yet you…

22

My board certified ob told me drinking in moderation was my decision and there was little data on moderate drinking. Also little data on caffine intake. I’ll grant the blood vessel constriction, thats good science, but what are the effects? My girlfriend’s board certified ob (different than mine) told her the same thing.

Most of my generation (born mid 1960’s) are the products of mothers who occationally drank, smoked, and did a host of other things that are now verboten. We were also almost all raised on formula - with none of the La Leche Leagues apparent doomsday results.

If you are going to go up in arms about drinking and smoking, how about rare beef, asprin, not taking prenatal vitamins, gaining too much weight - or too little, and the host of other “in a family way” no no’s. How about the other stuff we have little data on - pesticides and most of the pharmacopia come to mind.

23

When people other than my doctor and my husband started playing Pregnancy Police with me, I just smiled and nodded, and let it slide. There isn’t much else a pregnant woman can do. Cigarettes, caffeine and alcohol aren’t good for you anyway, pregnant or not. But when a woman is pregnant, it is just such an obvious condition, and people feel compelled to say things.

However, if people start passing laws about what a pregnant woman can & cannot ingest, what’s next? Laws concerning what women attempting to conceive can & cannot do? What husbands of pregnant women* can & cannot do?

You see where I’m going with this? Tell a pregnant woman it’s against the law for her to smoke, because she is pregnant. Then tell her husband it’s against the law for him, too, because he lives with her, and she will be exposed to secondhand smoke. Bust a few women, and the public will say “tsk tsk, she shouldn’t have been doing that.” Start popping the men, too, and those laws will change back. Fast.

It’s not going to happen. It can’t.

This space blank, until Wally thinks up something cool to put here.

24

I certainly wouldn’t go so far as to support laws that dictate what a pregnant person may or may not do if there isn’t clear evidence that it’s harmful in the first place.

On the other hand, I wouldn’t sell a pregnant woman a bottle of whiskey either. If these people don’t want to sell cigarettes or alcohol to pregnant women, isn’t that their right? I wouldn’t want to do anything that might contribute to harming the child, even though I don’t have control over what the mother decides to do.
-Steve

“Banned by the Space Pope”

25

Wevets,

How do you know the pregnant woman is going to drink the bottle of whiskey? I often buy bottles for gifts - and did so while pregnant. Someone invites you to dinner, you bring wine, even though you might not drink it. My husband gets an expensive bottle of bourbon every year for Christmas, and my Dad gets Scotch every year for his birthday.

I had no intention of using that wine list, believing that a pregnant woman drinking in public is a nice way to ruin a perfectly good evening out (and I seldom drink wine with dinner, in fact I seldom drink, pregnant or not, so it wasn’t a loss), I just wish the waiter would have treated me like an adult.

26

Far be it from me to tell people what they have to do. I’m just reporting what the Doctor said.

When my wife was pregnant last year, she gave up tennis, all alcohol, all caffeine, took prenatal vitamins, walked 3 miles a day, did her Kegler exercises, and wouldn’t even go near the microwave. She did absolutely everything possible to give our unborn child the greatest possible advantage she could.

While I guess that a woman has the right to do what she wants, I would think that any woman who knowingly puts her child at risk oughtta have her head examined.

I do know my wife well enough to know that had our baby been born with a defect, and there was any chance she was responsible for it, she would never have forgiven herself.

Perhaps coincidentally, my wife’s aunt was also pregnant at the same time. She smoked, drank occasionally, and even had some pot. Her child has a whole in his heart, and needs surgery to correct it. Is there a connection between this defect and her behavior? I don’t know, but if I was her I wouldn’t feel to good about myself.

My wife also complained about the oversolicitoussness of complete stangers, but also admitted to being somewhat comforted by it.

I would like to think that when a woman is pregnant she is doing a wonderful thing that involves the future of the whole human race. I’d like to think that these “solicitous strangers” recognize this on some level, feel involved, and that it brings out there best and most caring natures and a very sincere desire to participate helpfully, no matter how briefly or insignificantly.

I’m sure that’s naive.

In case you wnt to know our daughter is five months old, perfectly healthy and wonderful. I am immensely proud of my wife and the sacrifices she made to bring this about, and greatful to the innumerable friends and strangers that helped her.

In other words “Suck it up Babes, you’re pregnant, people are happy for you and want to express it. Deal with it.” :slight_smile:

27

Eve:

It’s clear that in this case you didn’t have an appropriate response. This is a sufficient reason not to respond. I was merely responding your assertion that the situation was “none of your business.”

cher3:

Clearly more science is necessary to come up with a rational understanding of acceptable limits.

Cristi:

The fallacy of the slippery slope. If there is a valid need to pass laws to protect a baby (even if that protection is retroactive to gestation) then the law should be considered on that basis.

You have the 100% absolute right to decide whether to reproduce or not. Once you decide to reproduce, then society has an obligation and responsibility towards that new person; he is not your property.

I understand being irritated at not being treated like an adult. When a new moral idea starts to come into wide acceptance, there is a period of people being a little obnoxious about it as they good-heartedly try to spread the word. I commend your patience.

I think, however, that soon the moral concepts regarding a woman’s responsibility to her gestating child will become sufficiently well-defined to be codified into law. And I would support such a move.

I just want to go on record as supporting absolutely a woman’s right to reproductive freedom and medical privacy without restriction.

Kind of a straw man here. (no pun intended!)

Not all of us men are such obvious pigs. Many of us spend quite a lot of energy hiding our piggishness. I absolutely would support a “no second-hand smoke” law, and hold men as accountable as women.

Scylla: Congratulations, and kudos to your wife :slight_smile:

Not one shred of evidence supports the notion that life is serious.

28

Its only a matter of time before someone tries such a suit. My moneys on the bartender for fetal alcohol syndrome.

29

I still have’nt got that ‘quote’ thing down yet. Please be patient with me.

30

Embarrasment can be a powerful teaching tool.

I recommend the following procedure for over-helpful waitpersons wherever pregnant women encounter them:

Look the information volunteer dead in the eye, and with a straight face brushed with an air of indignation say calmly:

“I’m not pregnant.”

And then just stand there open-mouthed staring at them like the rudest person in the world and like it’s OBVIOUS to everyone but THEM that you are NOT pregnant.

For strangers, it’s good for everything from unsolicited advice to “When are you expecting, dear?”

This, of course, doesn’t work if your one of those who wears “maternity” clothes with all the bows in pastels and the sailor collars and mush like the t-shirt that reads “baby here!” That’s like painting a “give me unwanted advice” target on your back.

31

Commander Fortune, a situation similar to the one you describe did happen to my friend. She miscarried her baby in the 7th month but still looked pregnant (she is a tiny person so she had an unusually protruding belly area but the rest of her was very thin.) At a restaurant the waiter insisted on bringing her decaffeinated coffee because of her “condition.” Needless to say, she was very upset over his statement.

While I agree that if you see someone doing something that is definitely harming their child you should say something, saying something because they are doing something that might possible have an adverse effect on their child is crap. What next? The waiter refusing to wrap up your left-over dinner for your dog because pets shouldn’t be eating table scraps? After all, as someone pointed out earlier, we have a responsibility to animals to prevent them from harm as well.

I always try to do things in chronological order.

32

But he isn’t your property either. Until he is age 18, he is my responsibility. I am responsible for his every move, until such time as the law says I am not. If I allow my child to feel that society has a responsibility towards him, he will feel no responsibility towards society.

But if you really feel an obligation to my kids, well, I would like to send them to college…

You know I’m kidding. The rest of your post was very well spoken, by the way.

This space blank, until Wally thinks up something cool to put here.

33

The book “The Broken Cord” describes fetal alcohol syndrome from the perspective of the adoptive father of a victim. In the book, he talks about the problem a Sioux reservation has (altho it is not an Indian problem specifically, and could happen anywhere) with chronic alcoholic women turning out one severely damaged baby after another. These women were not just drinking alcohol, they were huffing Lysol; anything to get high. The thing is, the tribe had to care for the kids, who would never be capable of independent living. There was discussion of actually jailing the mothers throughout their pregnancy to prevent them from drinking; I don’t know if that was ever done. I think the problem is too horrifying for most people to look at straight.

As far as my PERSONAL opinion goes, once a substance is identified as a teratogen, and it’s something that’s possible, and even fairly easy, to eliminate, the prudent person avoids it totally during her pregnancy. Just my opinion.

34

“The Broken Cord” is a wonderful book, but has a lot of problems as fact - mainly that the family says Micheal Dorris made a lot of it up. Dorris was also accused of sexually abusing his children - he committed suicide before resolution.

Fetal Alchol Syndrome is a very real thing however, and children who have it are in bad shape. But, it is not caused by one drink. Here is a link.
http://www2.potsdam.edu/alcohol-info/FAS/FAS.html

We do not know what a “safe” amount of alcohol is - and a prudent woman will probably choose not to ingest any…but we don’t know what a “safe” amount of most things is in pregnancy - and moderation is important in everything. It is easy, for instance, to give your baby too much iron or sugar as well, but no one refused me liver and onions or the dessert menu (not that I ordered liver and onions - ick).

35

I beg to differ.

Anytime a child is subjected to neglect, abuse, or in this case danger to his physical being, it is our responsibility to help protect the child by calling Social Services.

Pardon me while I burst into flames.

36

SingleDad, if you’re not busy this weekend, could you come over to my house?

See, the problem is that, like Eve, I’m surrounded by clueless idiots who smoke during pregnancy. On the west, I’ve got a woman who’s been through 3 husbands (one kid per husband), smoked like a chimney through all 3 pregnancies, has been having her mom and dad (who also smoke like chimneys) before- and after-school babysit the kids until they were all 18 and old enough to move out of the house (the youngest is 13 and is still there every day), and all three kids, I have to say, are marginal members of society, living proof of the dangers of second-hand smoke (IMHO, of course, because Big Tobacco assures us that that’s something made up by the lawyers and the bleeding-heart liberals.)

Then, two doors to the east, I have an otherwise well-meaning nuclear family with 4 school-age kids, and the mom and dad both smoke like chimneys. And those kids, I have to say, are also what I would call marginal members of society. They’re nice kids, but they’re like, “duh” most of the time. (Maybe it’s not the smoke, maybe it’s just genetics.)

So, SingleDad (and Andros :slight_smile: don’t want to leave you out of the party), you are cordially invited over here any time to explain it to these people, because I’m with Eve–I don’t want to get any attack dogs sicced on me. (The people on the east have a big Dalmatian, and the people on the west have a fully-trained attack grandpa known as “Dar”.)

'Preciate it.

37

Diane—If I actually saw her hitting the baby or forcing IT to smoke and drink, then yeah, I’d call Social Services (though I’d have to move).

But if I called them to say “she smokes and doesn’t use sunscreen on her baby!” they’d hang up on me, and tell her that her neighbor is a crazy busybody.

I’ve seen how nutty people can get, and I have no intention of involving myself in a Hatfield & McCoy feud! I don’t need to come home and find my kitties boiling in a pot on my stove . . .

38

Not necessarily.

A client of mine was given a court order to not smoke within a certain number of feet from her child and not at all indoors or in her car. Her daughter suffers from asthma and the mother was putting her into grave danger every time she lit up.

The child’s aunt turned her in to Social Services when attempts to reason with the mother failed. It looks like the problem has been solved and the little girl is doing much better.

My sister and I called Social Services and anonymously reported the neglect my cousin was giving his children. Although I left my name and telephone number so the case manager could contact me, our identity was kept secret. Eventually, the parents were court ordered to take parenting and home-living classes. That was almost 9 years ago and they are still doing great.

How many times do we hear on the nightly news stories of child neglect and abuse only to have friends, family, and neighbors come forward and say that they had noticed things but never went to authorities? Idiots.

Granted, Social Services would most likely thank you for your concern but politely brush you off if you call to report a mother smoking around her baby. But you also mentioned that she smoked and drank to “beat the band”. I’ll go out on a limb here and say that most likely there is some neglect happening due to the heavy drinking. I would also say it is quite neglectful to lay a baby in direct sunlight with nothing covering it. Babies skin is very susceptible to serious burning from the sun, and yeah, it is negligent.

I don’t think your neighbor sounds like an extreme case, but you have obviously noticed something. If you think it is bad, then yeah, it is your business.

I certainly do not think we should call Social Services each and every time we don’t agree with someone’s parenting skills, but I do think it is our business to call the authorities (anonymously if you need to) when we suspect abuse or neglect.

Pardon me while I burst into flames.

39

You have a good point, Dangerosa, but for people like waiters and store clerks who have no basis from which to trust a stranger, aren’t you putting them in a difficult position? I’m sure if you went to a store regularly, and they knew you there, they’d have a much better knowledge base from which to trust you and sell you that bottle of whiskey, since they’d know you wouldn’t be plugging in into the baby’s bloodstream.

A lot of people can’t be trusted, and would plug that whiskey into their baby’s bloodstream. If they don’t know you, why should they assume that you’re one of the trustworthy ones?

Commander Fortune: Great response… that would leave even the aforementioned clerk who doesn’t know you stupified and horribly embarrassed, even though I think he’s trying to do the right thing.
-Steve

“Banned by the Space Pope”

40

Its called “the benefit of the doubt”

If you buy a baseball bat - I don’t assume you are going home to beat your dog with it.