GUBU
An Irish woman's social, political and domestic commentary
Wednesday, September 22, 2004  

Scans in pregnancy

In my low maintenance midwifery led care scheme, just one scan is provided at 20 weeks. They are amazing things and one leaves afterwards clutching the printout showing a clearly defined baby (with alien features it must be said). Visible is a perfect spine in addition to clearly functioning organs like the heart, stomach and bladder. Fingers, toes, the lot. And yet, still I feel like I've been kicked and need to lie down afterwards. The terror of worrying what they might find (and about which absolutely nothing can be done anyway ) is so intense that I don't realise I'm even feeling it until the relief starts to flood out when I get home. A quick perusal of pregnancy websites will show loads of messages about what people have discovered on the latest scan. Usually they're terrified because the baby is bigger or smaller than it should be. I suggested to one silly cow that perhaps she should stop asking what weight the baby was because they grow at different rates and a spurt one week could result in a rest for several weeks (which would then no doubt result in a panic over the lack of growth). I got a snotty reply that she enjoyed knowing that her baby was making progress. But clearly she wasn't enjoying it. Clearly she was using an estimated weight at one point to project forward to a monster baby at birth and what she actually enjoyed was fretting about whether or not she'd get it out. Anyway, I don't see the use beyond the bare minimum necessary. Once there's movement, there's health.

posted by Sarah | 21:28 0 comments
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