Now pregnant women are responsible for the obesity epidemic too?

This article bugs me. I have no research to refute it with, nor have I read the studies to see how well they were done. But I have an instinctual aversion to it. It feels to me like the easy way out – when you can’t find the cause of a problem, try blaming pregnant women.

Some questions I have:
1. Why is family baby weight history not mentioned? I was over 8 pounds at birth and I imagine my husband was too. I’d guess my father was too. So even if my mom gained less weight than I did, large babies run in our family because we are big people. My 8 pound 10 ounce baby was just what I expected, regardless of my weight gain.

2. My doctor in Bolivia predicted at 10 weeks, based on the growth to that point, that I’d have a four kilo baby. He was right. At that time, I don’t think I’d gained any weight at all. I ended up gaining about 60 pounds. But the baby was still 4 kilos.

3. I’m an outlier on the tall side when it comes to height for women. My husband is on the tall side of men. So it’s natural that we would expect to have a larger than average offspring. I don’t expect I would gain the same amount of weight as a smaller person expecting a smaller offspring.

4. I know several women who gained 50-60 pounds, who delivered healthy, large babies, who eat well and exercise, and whose children have grown into healthy and not overweight toddlers and young boys/girls. These women have lost the excess weight post-baby. What is the point of making women like this stress out when they are already suffering and worrying enough during the travails of pregnancy?

5. Is there a correlation between women who gain an excess amount of weight during pregnancy and women who make poor nutritional choices for their children? Perhaps it’s the latter part that is the greater concern.

I may be a little defensive on this subject, given my 60 pound weight gain last time around. But I started out about 10 pounds under my normal weight and I eventually lost 50 of those 60. Since I started out underweight, I pretty much returned to normal. So far I’ve gained 18 pounds this time around, with 16 weeks to go. I suppose if I really watched what I was eating, perhaps I could stay within the 25-35 pound weight gain. But I tend to put on the weight in the latter half of the pregnancy, so I expect I’ll go beyond that. And I don’t really feel like stressing out about it when I eat a lot of healthy food (in addition to some sweets), exercise, and am in the process of creating and nourishing a healthy baby.

Thanks to his 8 pounds and 10 ounces, River survived my milk taking a week to come in and the pound he lost didn’t affect him much. Yes, he was a chunk around a year of age, but he lost the fat when he started moving and is now a slender toddler. He eats vegetables and sushi, fruits, yogurt and whole grains. I let him have occasional sweets, but very little in the way of processed foods and refined grains.

Childhood obesity is an issue that concerns me and I take active steps to ensure my child is well nourished and gets exercise. But I’m not going to take the blame for what I eat during pregnancy. Give me a break.

What do you think?

the process moves on, or does it?

I’m still struggling to reconcile the knowledge that I’m pregnant and the fact that I’m able to go about my daily activities with relative normalcy. Yes, I have some symptoms. My breasts are larger, I need more sleep, my appetite is reduced and I sometimes feel a slight nausea. At times I feel every cell in my body is drained of energy and I can do nothing but lie on the sofa or in bed. But fortuitously, this usually doesn’t happen until the late afternoon or evening.

Perhaps I have something attached to my uterus, which is causing the symptoms, but it has stopped growing. Or perhaps I’m just lucky this time around.

I guess I’ll find out at the sonogram on Tuesday. In the meantime, life progresses, this new life hopefully develops, and it’s really no big deal. It’s possible to almost forget I’m pregnant. I haven’t gained any weight and fit easily into all my clothes. It’s hard to imagine popping, though I did purchase a few maternity items for work so I’ll be ready when it happens.

Instead of obsessing about pregnancy, I’m instead planning for a potential trip to central Africa. Seriously? Yes, I’m still trying to process that myself. I’m admittedly a bit nervous about the tradeoffs between taking malaria medications in early pregnancy (none of the options look great) or taking the risk of trying to prevent it without medications, but knowing that getting the disease would be terrible. At the same time, it’s a good professional opportunity and I’m always excited by a foreign adventure. I know there will be a break in my world travels during the latter parts of pregnancy and breastfeeding, so I may as well travel while I can. River visited four countries as an embryo/fetus, so I guess it’s only fair to give this one an equivalent chance at free travel.

I’m pretty sure my recent trip to Africa killed my chances of being able to donate cord blood. If not, this trip will do it. That’s a disappointment.

Good news

The doctor called. My blood work is normal. Hormones are in the right place. Progesterone is good. He said this means that a sonogram should be able to see the baby and detect a heartbeat. So I guess it’s time to schedule a sonogram appointment. The doctor told me congratulations, which kind of brought the situation more to life. Yikes.

At the same time, after gaining weight for five days straight, I’ve now lost weight for five days straight and am back to about where I started, a little over 3 pounds over my average weight. I’m not sure what to attribute this strange pattern to. I haven’t been exercising quite as much as I’d like, largely due to being tired in the mornings and evenings. But that same fatigue results in me eating less. And I’ve been making an effort to eat smaller breakfasts and to have to have at least one salad a day.

Last pregnancy I couldn’t have touched salad at this point. All I could stomach was French fries and Snickers. This time around, I think I’m over the Snickers, due to the high fructose corn syrup. But I get unreasonably excited at the prospect of French fries. Which reassures me that I’m still pregnant.