I’m 44 and people don’t know how to react to me being pregnant. Even when I tell them full of joy “I’m pregnant, I’m going to have a baby!” some people are still cautious with their response. I thought the way I give them the news would help them see I’m very happy and this is wonderful news for us but they’re hesitant and it takes them a bit of time to react to the news. I don’t mind but at the same time, I wonder why we’ve reached this point.
I’m a natural fertility expert, each time we’ve tried for a pregnancy we’ve achieved it almost straight away. With my second I was still breastfeeding my 1.5yo toddler when we decided to try for a sibling, my period had just returned and it was very irregular. Still, I got pregnant a couple of months after we started trying…
So if my body is able to conceive, what’s the problem for it to carry out a healthy pregnancy?
I don’t agree with many parameters that consider us “high risk”.
For me, women should have a doctor involved in their care if they have:
· A pre-pregnancy condition that has required specialist help like a heart condition, epilepsy, a bones or muscular condition, mental or physical health problems…
· A condition that develops during the pregnancy like pre-eclampsia, cholestasis, bleeding…
· A problem that develops with baby and will make him likely to need extra support once born.
· A pregnancy that has been difficult to achieve and it’s required a doctor’s help to happen.
The rest of the classifications that puts us in a high-risk model of care I find them biased and quite harmful for many women. A woman during pregnancy needs to be happy and as worry-free as possible. This way, her stress levels will be down to a minimal and a minimal amount of damaging hormones (like cortisol and adrenaline) will pass on to the baby’s bloodstream. When she’s happy and worry-free she will secrete oxytocin, endorphins, dopamine… all the feel-good hormones that will also flow through her baby’s bloodstream telling the baby “life is beautiful, everything is fine…” and preparing her for a life full of love outside the womb.
In my opinion, classifying women as high risk because they’re too young, too old, too fat, too thin, eating much, not eating a lot… is just raising the levels of bad hormones flowing through mother and baby’s bloodstream.
So far, this pregnancy I’ve turned to medicine at week 12 to have a short scan to check the baby’s neck. The risk of having a baby with Down’s syndrome is higher the older you are and I’d like to be prepared if this was going to be our case.
I might have another one, later on, to know where the placenta is and to see if there are any obvious conditions that will suggest my baby will need special care at birth.
