I’m going to have to go on maternity leave early. Today was my last day of teaching. That’s the thing; pregnancy is not an illness, but it does put a lot of strain on the body, and it’s undeniable that it affects one’s capacity to work effectively. I had to finish early last time too, but I thought things were going better this time. My body had other ideas, and has just mutinied. Perhaps I was a little crazy taking on full time study, part time work and full time mothering all at once. The last year has been very tough – I haven’t caught up with my friends as much as I would have liked because I used my weekends and evenings to prepare for the coming week’s teaching or to do PhD work. It’s been a struggle to manage it all for both my husband and I. All these reports in the press featuring super mums and yummy mummies – good for them – but for most of us who live in the real world, it’s just not that easy.
Anyway, I’m going to try and be good and get lots of rest. I think I’ll have to get a few books to tide me over the unexpected break! Now there’s an exciting prospect!
23 Comments
In case it helps there is a mass of books on line at this site of the Australian Gutenberg project http://gutenberg.net.au/
You an also catch up on some of the classics in condensed form like “The Road to Serfdom” http://www.iea.org.uk/files/upld-publication43pdf?.pdf#search=‘Road%20to%20Serfdom%20summary’
and “The Open Society and its Enemies”
http://www.the-rathouse.com/OpenSocietyOnLIne/AATheProjectwithIndex.html
All these reports in the press featuring super mums and yummy mummies
These mums to be need to get up to date with the latest literature on pregnancy. It sounds so noble and economics has something to do with it but in my opinion mums to be should think very carefully about how much stress they place themselves under, especially during the last few months of pregnancy.
What John said. Take it easy, champ – lots of sleep ins and leisurely swims sound like the order of the day.
Here’s an example, there are many more like it. As SL advised, take it easy and don’t sweat it.
Horm Behav. 2008 Mar 20. [Epub ahead of print]
Chronic maternal stress affects growth, behaviour and hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal function in juvenile offspring.
Emack J, Kostaki A, Walker CD, Matthews SG.
CIHR program in Maternal Adversity Vulnerability and Neurodevelopment (MAVAN); Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, 1 King’s College Circle, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 1A8.
Maternal stress during pregnancy, particularly that combined with low socioeconomic status (SES), has been linked to an increased risk for impaired behavioural and emotional development and affective disorders in children. In animal models, acute periods of prenatal stress have profound effects on hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) function and behaviour. However, few studies have determined the impact of chronic exposure to stress in animal models. The objective of this study was to determine the effects of chronic maternal stress (CMS) during the 2nd half of pregnancy and nursing on growth, locomotor behaviour and HPA axis function in juvenile guinea pig offspring. Pregnant guinea pigs were exposed to a random combination of variable stressors every other day over the 2nd half of gestation and from postnatal day (pnd) 1 until weaning (pnd25). CMS mothers displayed increased basal salivary cortisol levels in the later stages of pregnancy compared to control mothers (p<0.05). The male offspring of CMS mothers had a lower bodyweight, which was maintained to weaning (p<0.01). In open-field testing, CMS male offspring showed a decrease in activity compared to controls (p<0.05). There was no effect of CMS on bodyweight or activity in female offspring. In contrast, both male and female offspring born to CMS mothers displayed increased (p<0.05) basal salivary cortisol at pnd25, but a blunted adrenocortical response to exposure to the novel open-field enclosure. In conclusion, CMS leads to modification of growth trajectory, locomotor activity and adrenocortical responses to stress in juvenile offspring. Further, males appear considerably more vulnerable to these effects than females.
PMID: 18674758 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
I’d argue for its recognition as a mental one, but as long as Eaglet no. 1 can still recognise you, you’ve probably not done too badly. Lay in some heavy duty SF and enjoy the break while you can. Best of luck for the ‘big push’.
The media usually likes to publish photos of starlets 1-2 weeks post birth looking slim and saying wow, as if only starlets ever look like that. Well my wife was back to her pre-pregnancy weight after a natural and c-s births by about week 2. By week 4-6 that tummy bump was gone too. And she’s had to cope it without nannies! So yeah, she’s a true super mum in my eyes.
re work prior to birth – best thing is to listen to your body. We didn’t make firm plans on when she’d finish up – just played it as it came, and luckily no dramas. But if your body says it isn’t coping, you are doing the right thing and putting both of your health and well being first.
good luck le
TY all for your well wishes. Rafe, ooh thank you! I shall check out those websites. And yes, DEM, I think SF will have to play a part in my reading list.
John, my Mum had me at the equivalent of the end of next week for this little fella (10 weeks+ premmie), and my grandpa was born 8 weeks premmie. I’m sure stress doesn’t help that kind of problem at all, and it isn’t good for the poor bub either. It wasn’t even particularly economically worthwhile continuing on in my case – childcare fees, petrol and parking ate up most of my wages. I’ll probably save a bomb by giving up work!
Last time when I had to take it easy I knitted one and a half cardigans. Maybe I could knit that other half cardigan this time?
Knitting is good. Knitting is zen (as long as you don’t try to knit complex lace). Knitting while watching vids or listening to good music or interesting podcasts is top stuff for relaxing. Finish the cardi. Start a hat to match.
All the best LE, good to see the smart ones are still breeding, gotta keep shifting that bell curve to the right to ward off dysgenics.
Try and increase your oily fish intake, particularly Tas or Atlantic salmon. The fetus craves omega 3′s and tends to strip these from the mother. There was even a study in Britain a few years which found that feeding the pregnant mums omega 3′s v. slightly increased some cognitive markers in the babes.
I suspect that this omega 3 stripping is a partial player in post partum depression but that is an just an intuition on my part. Yes, people usually think of depression as being low serotonin. It is a lot more complicated than that. The psychiatrist D. Horrobin did some pioneering research on this long ago but only now are his ideas being heeded. There can be an immunological component but that is a long and complicated story.
Be well, be happy.
I don’t know what it is but my wife seems to do quite well energy/health wise when pregnant…but sometimes…oops I mean every time she goes into to labor she likes to show off her stamina 12hrs+. I can only pull off the caring sharing new age man shit for about 8 or 9 before I finally crack!
M-H, it’s true, knitting is zen. Except that the half finished cardi was one of those lacy knits which requires intense concentration, so I might start an easier one instead to begin with.
I’ve been trying to make sure I eat salmon once a week, John – I have actually been craving it, so I think bubba wants it. Also have margarine which is omega-3 enhanced.
Nanu, my Mum had a 27 hour labour with me and a 2 hour labour with my sister. I had a 24 hour labour with my first…I’m hoping that I take after Mum with my second! Actually, the midwives warned me last time that this one would be quick because once Eaglet No. 1 actually decided to turn around and cooperate, she came really fast (within an hour)
LE
Didn’t want to be a scaremonger in the first instance, but, it is actually 18hrs+ for each of my three kids. The hour thing is just not about the baby being the right way but you as well, both in body & mind. Listen to me all I had to do is stand there…actually, we husbands do get better at this labor gig, although most make the mistake first time round of patting the their partner on the head (woof-woof) ..very bad move. Not me (I’m so clever), because I’d heard about the ‘puppy-pat’ before. Second & third time around I did it for a laugh just to break the tension with “Good Puppy” thrown in for good measure.
Speaking of the third one I actually decided to head to Brunswick Street for a bite to eat (grumpy when hungry and labor not a good mix), I got to the front door of the hospital and decided that I’d just have a can of Coke & a quick smoke and head back. Anyway I get back and the delivery ward reception area was like the Marie Celeste. So I head inside my wife’s delivery suite to find it full of people, two doctors, three midwives, an anesthetist, a few other nurses and a couple of paramedics (the paramedics were in training). Apparently the alarm had gone off that the baby was in trauma no sooner than I’d left and theatre had been called to prepare for an emergency caesarean. I was so close to being sitting in a cafe eating pizza when this all happened and change my mind at the last minute. As it turned out the baby’s heart beat was back to normal within a few minutes but for some reason the room remained full (except for one of the doctors and a midwife who left)….a real all hands on deck scenario! Anyway the midwives were just telling my wife to get on with it so I decided to give my wife a target time (with a little showing of thrown in as I knew my wife wasn’t far off) of 5.50pm (about 30-40min). At ten to six we had a little girl in front of what seemed to be the entire maternity staff! The point of the story I guess is how it was very reassuring to see how quick the medical staff reacted.
My husband tried to pat my head too…and almost gotten bitten for his troubles. Treat me like a puppy and I’ll behave like one! The poor fellow was just trying to think of something to do, and was distressed by my pain, but still…yes, patting the head is a mistake when a woman is in that situation.
OMG!! So where do they come from? I know what people say, but that is simply not true. I have pay TV.
Good luck. Each of the four child births that I have witnessed has been very different.
“My husband tried to pat my head too…and almost gotten bitten for his troubles…”
It’s unbelievably common apparently. The cause of many a “You F**King B**tard” apparently. LOL
Amazingly I didn’t swear – I surprised myself – but I did try to bite various people…I think I was so out of my head that I couldn’t quite communicate (even by swearing) that I didn’t want whatever they were trying to do to help me, and biting seemed like the quickest option.
Epidural or not?
Believe it or not, I had nothing. I did try gas but it made me think men were coming in on the roof, so that was the end of that. They were about to give me an epidural when they took and look and shouted “Push!”
My wife was the same as you first time round..left it to late for the epidural. Needless to say, that didn’t happen with the next two!
“I want an EPIDURAL”
“I have told you I WANT an EPIDURAL”
“I don’t want it left for the last minute…”
& etc. & etc & etc.
She swears by them, but they still have certain risks.
I heard that they are known to refuse to give you one [epidural] if you have a lower back tattoo! How pissed off would you be!
Hmm…I have a lower back tattoo. I don’t want an epidural anyway, because I had a bad experience with a spinal block when I was a kid having a leg operation…I had bad side effects. I worry that the same would happen this time; I’d probably rather put up with the pain (seriously).
“Pregnancy is not an illness!”
It bloody well would be if I got it!
All the best, mate. I was right there for both of them. There’s nothing in the world that could match that experience for both, mum and dad! I still smile when I think about those moments, so long ago!
TY – I’m so excited to meet No. 2. I wonder what he’ll be like?
LE, “What he’ll be like?”
May he be strong and healthy! May his heart be big and his mind even bigger but may his head be small and know humility! May his mouth only utter wisdom and love and his lips be constantly kissing! May his arms span widely and embrace his parents, the rest of his family and his fellow man warmly.
And may his parents love him and enjoy him every minute of their lives!
All the very best LE!
I’m always gushing over babies! Mine turned me into a blubbering twit!