this one's for the ladies

No, I'm not pregnant again, but just about everyone else is! 2009 may be the year of the ox, but it's also apparently the year of the baby. I know seven gals who are expecting, and that's just in the first seven months of the year! And who knows what the final five months of 2009 might bring. Turns out Heather Havrilesky is, in her words, "manufacturing a small human" again, too. Right around this time last year, when I myself was expecting, I compiled a sort of index of Havrilesky's writing about pregnancy. Her most recent essay on the topic, in which she makes a case for why Obama should enlist the help of late-stage pregnant women, is equally entertaining. Anyway, even if you're not pregnant, you should give it a read. And if you are pregnant, it'll make you feel pretty empowered. Or at least you'll know that there's strength in numbers.

While we're on the topic of making pregnant ladies feel good about themselves, months ago I pulled an article out of the health section of the October/November 2008 issue of Fit Pregnancy (I continued to get the magazine for a couple of issues beyond Elias's birth), intending to one day blog about what I felt was a pretty shocking article. The article, titled "Too much mama," explains "why experts are rethinking the pregnancy weight-gain guidelines." This was a topic of great interest to me during my pregnancy. I've always had issues with my weight and I wasn't the weight I wanted to be when I got pregnant. But I felt I was healthy enough (I wasn't going to necessarily put off family planning so I could lose a few more pounds) and pretty confident I could out-run my first OB/GYN, even at four months pregnant. Well into my second trimester, I switched doctors for this very reason and went on to gain about 45-50 pounds by the end of my pregnancy (honestly, those last few weeks I barely even glanced at the scale each week). And unless they were feeling deathly ill for the entire first trimester, I don't know a single woman who managed to stay within the recommended 25-35 pound weight gain. Needless to say, I was shocked when, upon reading the article, I discovered that the experts are considering lowering that weight gain recommendation. The new studies sited in the article suggest that a woman with a "normal" prepregnancy BMI (19.8-26) gain only 5 to 22 pounds. Total. Five?! Unless you lose weight during your first trimester, I don't even see how that's possible. And frankly, I think it's unfortunate that women are made to feel they've really accomplished something by not gaining weight until halfway through their pregnancy because they spent the entire first three months barfing.

Now, I realize that gaining too much weight increases your risk for various pregnancy problems and I was fortunate that none of these things were ever an issue for me (for example preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, hypertension, etc.). I also lost the weight pretty quickly; by the time Elias was about four months old, I was about five pounds less than my prepregnancy weight, which I attribute to a combination of breastfeeding and that crazy elimination diet I was on (weaning Elias to formula and going off that diet at the same time, followed by the holidays has put me a couple pounds over my prepregnancy weight, but still). But if the mom-to-be and unborn baby are otherwise doing well, I think that women should be free from all the pressures around food and weight during at least those nine months of their lives.

To all my pregnant superwomen friends out there I say, have another piece of rhubarb pie!