Friday, October 05, 2007

Don't worry your pretty little head

Health providers seem to agree that prenatal counseling is key. But some worry that all those "dos" and "don'ts" can overwhelm expectant moms, leaving them feeling conflicted, guilty and anxious.

This is exactly the kind of crap that makes me want to scream. Are we, as women, so incapable of handling our own health care that it is preferable to be ignorant? Are we weak and immature creatures who need protected? If you are overwhelmed by information about your pregnancy, I can only imagine how overwhelmed you're going to be by actually parenting a child!

But then again, I guess we shouldn't counsel moms and dads about childhood illnesses...we don't want to overwhelm them with information! I bet the insurance industry would love that approach. Or how about developmental milestones? I mean, it's better that they not worry and let little Johnny fall hopelessly behind before they get him some help.

Good grief!

3 comments:

Aurelia said...

Frankly, I like having all the information out there! When I first got pregnant 12 years ago, all they had was "What to Expect" and it was sooo poorly written, to this day I have nightmares about the stupid shit they made me scared of.

And that dumb comment about, "When you hear hoofbeats, think horse, not zebra" just drives me apeshit.

Zebras aren't extinct!

What about women like you and me!

Bon said...

this whole "don't confound me with too much info" or "don't tell me all the scary stories about labour" crap grates on me too...but i think it's just that i'm still not yet ready to be quite that sympathetic to the normal ostrich folk who seem to make up a depressingly large part of the population...and who, in moments of wallowing, i convince myself are all so blessedly lucky in their self-enforced delicate ignorance that nothing goes wrong for them.

i'm sure that isn't entirely the case...but bah, there's a lot of it out there, and it makes me fierce.

kate said...

What a stupid article. Didn't Ann Douglas also lose a baby? So i guess it is not true that 'nothing happened' to her, eh? (@*&#@^%@%@

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