Wow, that's a really big thing to go through! I'm 23 weeks pregnant now so it was interesting to think about losing a baby so late. We tell ourselves (well mostly I tell my mother) that it doesn't happen but it's a real possibility, and it's hard for me to wrap my head around what it means that such a huge caloric and emotional investment in another person comes to an end. My midwife told me that some souls only need a little time on earth. I hope that being a fetus is a nice experience and they enjoy the effort and love we put into them.
I am also sorry for your friend. I am sure the baby loved all the folate in the hummus.
I recently read a study in macaques that showed that uterine oxygen perfusion didn't change even with a 33% reduction in dietary protein. I am sure in your area of research you are very sensitive to all of the ways we can impact the development of our babies in the womb. But actually killing them is a different story, I think--pregnancy wasn't meant to be impossible.
I hope I didnt bring the mood down with my comment! I'm told pretty frequently that I move too much and will have a miscarriage--and I did--so that's where my mind went, in terms of why pregnant women may not be moving.
Last August I was 14 weeks pregnant (so I thought) and trampolining with my toddler in a hope to wear him out before bed. As I tramped I developed a terrible pain in my stomach like something bwas coming apart. The next day I started bleeding and two days after that miscarried the baby. The thing is the baby I miscarried was not 14 weeks old! She was still encased in a chorion with her placenta barely developed. She had a face with large eyes but flippers (no fungers) and a neck hump characteristic of a 6 week gestational/8 week pregnancy embryo. She measured 7 weeks 4 days on an ultrasound.
What is misunderstood is that miscarriages and fetal demise rarely occur on the same day! In my case the baby was so far off from my dates that it was obvious that the trampoline had not harmed her, and in fact had given me the gift of ending a pregnancy with a dead child that was making in retrospect making me a little sick. But what if we didn't have access to definitive knowledge of the growth stages of an embryo? What if I had happened to trampoline 7 weeks earlier? I would be horribly traumatized by the belief that excessive movement in pregnancy had killed my baby. I am sure many women carry this trauma and it is the reason we have so many stupid beliefs about how we may cause a miscarriage. It's certainly the reason that many emmenagogue herbs are categorized as abortificent herbs (that and ignorance).
I've definitely gotten some push back from family for running, jumping, and rock climbing in pregnancy (I actually did have to stop that since falling was putting pressure on my bladder) but the way I see it if I don't move joyfully and spontaneously I will never move. I can't even keep up an exercise routine when I am not pregnant.
Gosh, what a story. I had three miscarriages, two before 12 weeks and one at 22 weeks. I opted for medical management after waiting a bit to see if my body would deliver them alone, and I had a long-running uterine infection from one, and then a postpartum haemorrhage with the later one. Maybe I should have trampolined! I didn't think of that.
And you're so right. We are so worried that we have caused these events, when usually it's nothing to do with us at all. I hadn't thought about our cultural superstitions around herbs and beliefs about miscarriage. I remember holding a friend who was sobbing hysterically after she'd learned that her 10-week pregnancy had ended. And she kept repeating "I think I ate too much houmous." In retrospect, we've smiled gently about this, but the story still brings tears to my eyes. We are so quick to blame ourselves.
And totally agree about the joyful and spontaneous movement. That's how bodies have evolved to move. :)
Thank you so much for sharing such a powerful story.
Wow, that's a really big thing to go through! I'm 23 weeks pregnant now so it was interesting to think about losing a baby so late. We tell ourselves (well mostly I tell my mother) that it doesn't happen but it's a real possibility, and it's hard for me to wrap my head around what it means that such a huge caloric and emotional investment in another person comes to an end. My midwife told me that some souls only need a little time on earth. I hope that being a fetus is a nice experience and they enjoy the effort and love we put into them.
I am also sorry for your friend. I am sure the baby loved all the folate in the hummus.
I recently read a study in macaques that showed that uterine oxygen perfusion didn't change even with a 33% reduction in dietary protein. I am sure in your area of research you are very sensitive to all of the ways we can impact the development of our babies in the womb. But actually killing them is a different story, I think--pregnancy wasn't meant to be impossible.
I hope I didnt bring the mood down with my comment! I'm told pretty frequently that I move too much and will have a miscarriage--and I did--so that's where my mind went, in terms of why pregnant women may not be moving.
Last August I was 14 weeks pregnant (so I thought) and trampolining with my toddler in a hope to wear him out before bed. As I tramped I developed a terrible pain in my stomach like something bwas coming apart. The next day I started bleeding and two days after that miscarried the baby. The thing is the baby I miscarried was not 14 weeks old! She was still encased in a chorion with her placenta barely developed. She had a face with large eyes but flippers (no fungers) and a neck hump characteristic of a 6 week gestational/8 week pregnancy embryo. She measured 7 weeks 4 days on an ultrasound.
What is misunderstood is that miscarriages and fetal demise rarely occur on the same day! In my case the baby was so far off from my dates that it was obvious that the trampoline had not harmed her, and in fact had given me the gift of ending a pregnancy with a dead child that was making in retrospect making me a little sick. But what if we didn't have access to definitive knowledge of the growth stages of an embryo? What if I had happened to trampoline 7 weeks earlier? I would be horribly traumatized by the belief that excessive movement in pregnancy had killed my baby. I am sure many women carry this trauma and it is the reason we have so many stupid beliefs about how we may cause a miscarriage. It's certainly the reason that many emmenagogue herbs are categorized as abortificent herbs (that and ignorance).
I've definitely gotten some push back from family for running, jumping, and rock climbing in pregnancy (I actually did have to stop that since falling was putting pressure on my bladder) but the way I see it if I don't move joyfully and spontaneously I will never move. I can't even keep up an exercise routine when I am not pregnant.
Gosh, what a story. I had three miscarriages, two before 12 weeks and one at 22 weeks. I opted for medical management after waiting a bit to see if my body would deliver them alone, and I had a long-running uterine infection from one, and then a postpartum haemorrhage with the later one. Maybe I should have trampolined! I didn't think of that.
And you're so right. We are so worried that we have caused these events, when usually it's nothing to do with us at all. I hadn't thought about our cultural superstitions around herbs and beliefs about miscarriage. I remember holding a friend who was sobbing hysterically after she'd learned that her 10-week pregnancy had ended. And she kept repeating "I think I ate too much houmous." In retrospect, we've smiled gently about this, but the story still brings tears to my eyes. We are so quick to blame ourselves.
And totally agree about the joyful and spontaneous movement. That's how bodies have evolved to move. :)
Thank you so much for sharing such a powerful story.