Do you Fear Childbirth?

I certainly do. Always have and always will. The movies, the Lifetime reality shows and of course all the multiple horror stories you hear from family and friends has been ingrained in my head and as a result I now petrified of my own personal D-Day.. aka Delivery day. As much as mothers want to tell you it doesn't really hurt or you won't remember any of the pain as soon as they hand you your new bundle of joy.. is .. well, its Bull shit.


You expect me to believe that a small infant- head and all- is going to go through a little tiny hole -a precious hole at that- and its not going to rip, tear and cut open your vagina and it's NOT going to hurt?... Ha- good try..Giving birth, I'm sure is all magical and amazing but to me its kind of alien-like- if you've seen the movie Aliens with Sigourney Weaver you know what I'm talking about. Something living in your stomach that you shoots out after 9 months seems a little more bizarre than miraculous to me.


However now it seems that my fear is going to be the death of me.


A new study found that women who are terrified of giving birth ( which is 5-20% of women) will spend longer times in labor. ( Just what I needed to hear). They found that women who feared childbirth spent 1 hour and 32 minutes longer in labor than women who weren't afraid. 


They also found that women who feared childbirth were more likely to need an emergency cesarean.


Dr. Stuart Fischbein told CNN " We have a society where sensationalism sells. They're pounded with information [about] things that can go wrong with childbirth. Of course you develop fears."


I wonder if you can go to a hypnotist to cure your fear of childbirth?

So Wait, We Don't Have to be Sober for 9 Months?

I'll be honest, I like my wine. It's not a shock to anyone who knows me, I was even that girl in college who brought her own bottle to house parties. It has always irked me that whenever I eventually decide to be"with child" I have to go cold-sober while the dad-to-be gets to frolic around sipping his favorite cocktails.


Sure there have been experts in the past that have said one drink here and there won't cause any problems, but a new study suggests that low to even moderate drinking during early pregnancy is not linked with developmental problems in children up to five years old.

1,600 pregnant women participated in the Denmark study. Once the babies turned five, researches studied their baby's IQ, attention span, executive functions, and self control and compared the results with their mother’s drinking habits.  What they found? That overall there was no significant difference in IQ between children whose mothers drank low to moderate levels of alcohol ( 1-8 drinks per week) compared with mothers who didn't touch a drop. 

Now of course there are always 2-sides to every story and as Thomas Donaldson, executive director of the National Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome told ABC News, "The study investigated just a few of the many possible outcomes of low to moderate alcohol use during pregnancy. Alcohol is known to cause birth defects such as fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASDs) and there are other studies suggesting harm at low levels."

So are all the preggers out there supposed to remain thirsty for almost a year or can you sneak in a quenching glass of pino from time to time?

It seems that the "experts" will always tell you your better off safe than sorry and I guess (sigh) it isn't worth the risk anyways.. but if you do happen to slip, at least this new study has some encouraging findings.