Just like Valentine’s Day, Christmas and just about any gift giving holiday you can think of, pregnancy is full of money making schemes for business’ to take advantage of. They make you feel like you NEED this when you’re pregnant to get the most out of this wonderful (ha. Wonderful, right) time of your life. Don’t get me wrong, there’s some stuff out there that are a god-sent and really do help you be more comfortable or connect with your baby more, but now that I’m pregnant with my second baby (by the way, I’m pregnant with my second baby) I am able to reflect on my pregnancy with Ollie and realise how much crap is actually out there.
So I decided to write a piece about some of the things I was lead to believe I desperately needed and didn’t. Bon Appetite.
Foetal Doppler’s Do not, I repeat, DO NOT bother with foetal Doppler’s unless you are qualified and know how to use one! One more time for the people in the back of the room. DO NOT BOTHER WITH FOETAL DOPPLERS.
In case you’re not sure what I’m talking about, I am talking about those machines that QUALIFIED midwives and doctors use to hear the baby’s heartbeat. Yeah, I know, you can actually buy those – how great! You’re able to hear your babies heartbeat whenever you – I’m just going to stop right there. Welcome to Hayleigh’s science school for the mislead first time mum – write notes, there will be a test.
Ahem. In your tum-tum right now there’s a baby with a beating heart – cue the awww’s. As well as your baby’s heart there is also a thing called the Placenta. This gives your baby all the good shit to grow and stuff. The placenta also has a pulse that can be picked up by a Doppler. Breaking news, you ALSO have a heart beat and your heart beat’s echo can be picked up on the Doppler as well – No. Fricken. Way. Right?
Is anyone connecting the dots on why foetal dopplers are a bad idea yet? No? I’ll continue. If you put a foetal Doppler on said tum-tum you could be hearing any of the three things I listed above. On one side of the old coin here, you could be hearing your own heart beat and think everything is fine. Which is cool because you’re a qualified midwife/doctor and you know what you’re listening to (no you don’t). On the Queen Elizabeth side of the coin, you might not be able to find anything and that tends to make first time mums or in fact any mother rather nervous, and we have all been told how bad stress is for little Timmy.
Pretty much any side of this coin is bad. I’m sure you can work out for yourself what I’m trying to say. Don’t buy a Foetal Doppler. You’re welcome.
Expensive Stretch Mark Creams I understand Margret down the road used this $50 miracle cream and didn’t get one stretchie but she also may have very different skin to you, know what I mean? Skin is skin and its meant to be able to stretch but some women’s skin just isn’t as accommodating. My stretch marks just started showing up as soon as I thought I was pregnant and they got worse. At the time I thought it was the worst thing in the world because I wouldn’t have the perfect mum-tum like what you see in those maternity photos (which I will get to by the way *shudder*). Then I realised after having my son that I could have had 5-million stretch marks and I would still go back and have more babies (which I did).
Anyway, I’m off topic.
Expensive stretch mark creams might promise you the world but honestly, you may have just wasted your money. Think of the ice cream and chocolate you could have bought. Stretch marks are actually under your skin and are caused by elastin breakages under your skin, so it makes you wonder how applying cream on your stomach will help that. If you are really concerned about the appearance of stretchies, coco butter or coconut oil are some good prevention products that you can literally buy at Coles or Kmart. That’s right, I said Kmart – you have an excuse to go there now.
Pregnancy Pillows I literally use Jerome as my pregnancy pillow. He enjoys the spooning, I enjoy the comfort. Best of all, he didn’t cost me $50-$200 to buy (he was waaaay more expensive). The word Pregnancy derives from the Latin word knocked up, meaning desperate for anything to stop my back aching and allowing me more than three hours of sleep a night. Much like the word wedding, if you put pregnancy in front of anything it drives the price up automatically. I refuse to pay more for a pillow because of the packaging, especially knowing that once you’re not pregnant you probably won’t use it – mainly because sleep is now a thing of the past and your baby will probably be in bed with you anyway. Oh? You don’t plan on co-sleeping? Please read my previous article on things I said I’d never do before I actually had the baby. Here’s a handy-dandy link for you -> you’re going to co-sleep.
Seriously though, pillows come in so many shapes and forms, find a cheaper alternative that works for you because there are always cheaper alternatives.
Maternity Photos Oh boy. Granted, some of the photo shoots I have seen are amazing. Photographers are able to really bring out the beauty in pregnancy and somehow able to mask the agony you are currently in as well. I, however have no wish to be photographed when I literally feel my worst. No amount of editing could make me pay hundreds of dollars to look at pictures of myself resembling a whale. I’m not what I like to call ‘pretty-pregnant’. There’s a reason they didn’t show Fiona the Ogre when she was pregnant on the Shrek movies – ain’t no body want to see that. If you’re lucky to be pretty-pregnant and want Maternity Photo’s go for it – just don’t be tacky.
Other People’s Advice Including mine. Everyone is different and what might work for Margret down the road, might not work for you and that’s okay! Take bits and pieces of the advice given to you but you don’t need to do something just because your mother’s great grandmother’s neighbour did it, you know what I mean? Like I have said on previous blog posts, being a mum means learning on the go. No amount of books or advice can help some things. You just do what your mummy-insticts tell you to do and forget about everyone else.