6 Pregnancy & Birth Tips No One Told Me About

Things all expecting moms should know but no one told me.

These are all from my own experience. Hope they help you!

1. DO NOT trust Google (aka the Internet) for everything. Half the content is overblown.

DO NOT trust google for everything. Half the time you will freak out for no reason. Also, because I have yet to find A SINGLE HUMAN who knows exactly how babies work. Even the most experienced pediatrician on earth doesn’t know all the answers. And if they don’t how can we expect some random blokes (myself included) to be deemed the absolute 100% expert? We can’t!! Only God knows. (If you’ve ever dabbled in the idea of God / religion, I can almost guarantee you may find yourself closer to those beliefs than ever before.)

You will find yourself at 2am worrying because you had a sip of wine. Well, worse case, Google “Reddit + “Had wine pregnant”” to hear other stories of expecting women who’ve done it. But, chances are your little baby will be just fine.

I freaked out because I had rare steak, jerky, and a LOT of tuna (my midwife said new findings found tuna to be absolutely ok, even a good idea for Omega3s – you can even get special low mercury line-caught ones).

And, more… Then there are the pills. I ended up not taking pre-pregnancy pills. Only Folate because the hardcore mega pre-natal ones made me constipated (anyone who thinks this is TMI has likely never been / had a pregnant partner / kid before 😂 ). And, as of writing this, thankfully our almost 2 year old seems a-okay. She was born premature (aparently 1 in 10 babies are. Or something along those lines) but 99% sure a pre-natal vitamin from big pharma wasn’t going to solve that one.

2. There are “special” pregnancy products and things to avoid / do – BUT, don’t get TOO obsessed, turns out NO ONE truly 100% knows how babies work

By “Special” pregnancy products I didn’t know existed until researching:

1. Sperm-friendly lube (turns out all lube can inhibit sperm mobility, but there are ones that are more sperm-friendly / FDA approved.) I still wonder about this. Apparently egg whites are the best? But I don’t know if that’s a good idea… #yeastInfection
2. Folate – Even my midwife who was very anti-all-the-non-sense, was very big into taking Folate. Helps with baby’s health in the first months particularly. I didn’t remember all the time to take it)
3. NOs: soft cheeses, sketchy large long-living fish (in japan they don’t care about this as much but I tried to stick with salmon / the line-caught tuna

3. You don’t need to give birth in a hospital – You can do it at HOME (if your health / situation allows for it)

This was a HUGE revelation to me. Every movie has women laboring in MEGA pain in a hosptial (or rushing to a hospital). It didn’t even occur to me that there were other options. And it always looked DREADFUL.

I stumbled upon some books about moms who gave birth with ZERO / very little help — Namely a Midwife and sometimes a Doula as well.

I ended up choosing this path and although I ultimately needed to go to a hospital at 1am due to a sudden bleeding 2 months early / rare condition, I will say the journey was SO much better with our midwife rather than visits to the doctor (we did go for ultrasounds / some blood check ups).

Of course, this isn’t for everyone, but for myself, who really did not want to think about a hospital visit for 9 months this was a monumental help not just for me but I think also really helped my relationship with my partner. It was great to have a person to speak with in a non-rushed, non- hospital setting about everything from “Oh no I accidentally ate soft cheese, did I just kill the baby?” (answer: no) to “I have been SO angry lately, how do other couples handle this?” (answer: not unusual at all, hormones + and then stories + most importantly time just talking it through).

Maybe you have a doctor like that, or maybe you had a midwife who was absolutely not easy to talk to, but it was just my experience that speaking with our midwife was SO much easier than a doctor about every worry I had.

4. There is no “right” way to give birth

One of the things that seems to be a mega trend online is moms feeling guilty they birthed one way or another. I felt this way too when I was unable to do it “naturally” (we ended up needing an emergency c-section from a super rare placenta abruption 2 months early. Interestingly enough no one knows why they happen, they are just sort of flukes. I had no diabetes, no pre-condition, etc..)

I felt like a failure for not being there for the first moments for our baby for bonding, because when you have an emergence c section and the child is 2 months early, they go straight to NICU to get on oxygen, etc.

5. Homebirth / Midwives are not some granola-only thing. The concept is actually based in perfectly sound SCIENCE

One thing when I pitched this to other friends who did it the more “American tranditional” way, I got a lot of looks like “Seems risky”, “Is that based in science?” etc —

If you look at the way our ancestors gave birth this was 100% the normal way. Of course we had higher infant mortality but that is mostly attributed to not knowing about basic hygiene.

In fact, in Europe, it’s absolutely normal to have the baby “naturally” and only go in if there is something going wrong. Anyhoo, I’ve only had 1 kid, I’m no expert, but if you’re interested in this topic–

I highly recommend watching “The Business of Birth” / finding it online if you’re interested in the history of how we got to where we are in America.

6. Whatever your plan is, have ZERO expectations it will happen (but also try to be positive about it)

So I just said you don’t need to give birth in a hospital. Well, I was very eagar to not go to a hospital. And let me tell you, when it came to keeping our marriage from crumbling, having our midwife visits for us were a total lifesaver. We worked with one who would do home visits – When you’re nauseous (if you get nauseous.. Maybe you won’t :)) This is SO helpful. The last thing I wanted to do was drive to the doctor / a specialist for a mere checkup.

She would visit us at home on our hours and it was more like a therapy session where I could vent my million worries instead of just googling everything and freaking out.

your fellow neighborhood over 30 mom.

Alice