Fearless Pregnancy July 13, 2005

I hate the idea of giving more publicity to somebody quite so irritating, but Roxanne directed me to this article and this blog (which, for the record, is just a poor attempt at publicity from someone who does not understand really what blogs are meant to be).

Many women who’ve had losses have posted over there on how mistaken the author is about the likelihood of problems and loss during pregnancy. These are all well-founded, articulate comments, but I thought it would be too easy for her to dismiss these as coming from the small minority of "unlucky" people grieving their losses. My reaction was how misogynistic this all sounded– how similar to "diagnosing" women as hysterical.

Re-posted from my comment on the blog (with a bit of editing to the last paragraph to write what I meant to write over there but can’t now edit):

What you call needless worrying, I call being an intelligent, informed, active participant in your own health care.

What your co-author calls frustration over time spent calming women’s fears, I call laziness and irritation that women are trying to inform themselves and understand what’s going on in their bodies, rather than bowing down to the doctor as god.

You say that nothing women could have done would have changed the outcome of failed pregnancies. In many, maybe even most cases, this is true. But there ARE things responsible women can do to give their babies the best chance.

As an example, you state that the risk of miscarriage from amniocentesis is low. This is true. What’s also true is that the risk level is almost entirely dependent on the skill of the doctor performing the test. It was through "worrying" about this test that I learned this important fact, that I asked my doctor, and that I chose a clinic where the procedure was done 10x a day. I call this making a responsible decision for the well-being of my child.

Doctors are busy people, but more importantly, they’re people. There are good ones and there are bad ones. I happen to think I have one of the good ones, but he still makes mistakes or leaves off important bits of information. He never told me, for instance, not to change the cat litter or not to eat deli meat. Am I WORRIED about toxoplasmosis or listeria? No, because I stay away from that stuff. Am I glad that I worried enough to educate myself on these basics that my doctor did not bother to share? You bet I am.

Yes, there are people that glide through pregnancy without a single problem or concern. You sound like you were one of them. Lucky you. But your experience of a problem-free pregnancy in which you regret worrying at all, is only one of many experiences. A bit of well-rounded research would be useful to present a more accurate view of fears in pregnancy.

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