What the doctors tell my wife she can't do

In August when we went to England we found out that my wife was pregnant.  When we got back to China, we told my wifes parents when we got back.  They started straight away telling her what she couldnt do.  Dont use the computer, dont watch TV, dont sit in a room with a radiator, blah blah blah.  They bought a box with 288 things not to do when your pregnant.  Everytime we go to the doctors they tell her we are not allowed to have sex. 

Yesterday we went for our first antenatal class.  This involved learning exercises that we can do together during pregnancy.  Very usefull.  Then at the end the instructor told everyone not to go to the cinema during pregnancy as it too loud for the baby.  What a load of rubbish.

I am sure during the next 5 months, we will be told lots of other things she shouldnt be doing.  I will keep you informed.

You know if she uses the computer the baby will be able to decode binary from birth. 


Congrats to you both! Hope the pregnancy goes smoothly.

Congrats!

Thing #289 - Don't listen to Chinese Old Wives's Tales

I feel for you Mister Barfly, possibly more than I feel for your wife, cos she is Chinese I would assume she is used to all these stupid rules and possibly doesn't even think they are stupid (or does but is used to pretending to do as she is told ha ha). I just had my third baby back in the UK but received my antenatal care here and am now attending baby clinics with my 5-month old son and the crap they come out with amazes me. Some of it is just different ways of doing things, fine, but some of it is UTTER NONSENSE.

When pregnant, I was told not to walk too fast, not to get too excited, not to get too depressed, not to have sex, not to lift things (including my two other children, one of whom only weighs 12kg), not to eat too much rice/bread/potatoes/fruit, eat three eggs a day, not have too much sugar but oh, the powdered milk for pregnant woman that's sweetened, that's fine! Doing any of the things they told me not to do would very possibly cause a miscarriage, blah blah blah. I used to laugh at the pregnant women walking around like they were 90 years old - very slowly, holding someone's arm for dear life, I'm sure you've all seen them - but after hearing all the nonsense spouted by doctors I am more understanding! If this hadn't been my third child I might possibly have been so scared by all the advice from doctors and family that I would have worried that sneezing would cause me to lose the baby!!!

What makes all this nonsense about having a miscarriage seem especially over-the-top is that so many Chinese women are still doing manual labour all the way through their pregnancies and beginning again very soon after having their babies. My nanny  worked in her family's fields until she was 8 months pregnant and returned to work, with the baby on her back or being looked after at home by someone else, a month after giving birth.

Now with my baby I am forever told he isn't wearing enough clothes, yet at the same time they obviously think I am doing something right as everyone wants to know how I feed him. I should say here he is a very plump, good-sized baby, and when people hear he is now on formula milk they want to know what brand I use and get quite disappointed when I explain that I brought it myself from the UK (so they have no chance to use the same one).

Sorry for going on but you've touched a nerve here, now that most city dwellers only have one child they really do take the business of being pregnant and raising a child FAR TOO SERIOUSLY. So good luck for surviving the next 5 months (and beyond, cos the interfering won't stop with the birth, oh noooo) and here's hoping Mrs Barfly has an easy pregnancy.

 I've been there, Mr. Barfly. You'll be delighted to know this continues after the baby is born. My ex caught hell for watching TV after delivery, and more so for going out for dinner with a friend two weeks after our son was born.

Yes, I can see all the women walking around slowly with their Bamboo fibre aprons on hoping that this will block all of the radiation around them.  My wifes mum tested the one her dad bought her.  She put a mobile phone under it and called it.  She was not happy when the phone rang.  Apparently the really expensive ones block the signals.

Her mum said she is moving in when the baby comes.  I said you can come to visit but you aint moving in.

ChinesePod had a really good series of lessons on these cultural differences over pregnancy...the radiation suits, the house arrest etc....however I only found them amusing as they had nothing to do with me, I imagine having to deal with all these do's and don'ts in real life would drive one nuts!

I am really lucky as I haven't been given a list of rules from various people so far and I'm six months along.  Either that or while at the doctor, my translators know not  to give me that rubbish.   No one has said anything in English to me about what I "can't" do.   Not that I will listen.   

OK, RJ, here is your first "you can't" 

You can't swim around the world unassisted while pregnant. There, that is a sensible one.

These old wives tales are very interesting. Even more interesting is that they let the little darlings play in the filthy gutters as toddlers. 

You know if she uses the computer the baby will be able to decode binary from birth. 

What a pity my parents did not do so!

With my first, my son, who was born in Kunming 2 years ago, I was told I needed to get rid of my cat, which of course, I didn't do. Of course there is a concern with pregnant women and cats, but usually in the West they'll tell you to avoid changing the litter box rather than just getting rid of your pet entirely. I was also told not to use the computer so much, but my job involved sitting in front of a computer all day, so that was pretty much a lost cause, and I refused to buy one of those radiation things because they're just silly.

I had my daughter here in Beijing just 3 weeks ago and there were fewer traditional "don'ts" here, it seemed. Actually after the birth the doctors told advised us NOT to follow some of the old traditions that come with the "zuo yuezi" (坐月子) month long post-partum confinement period. Chinese women are not supposed to shower, brush their teeth, or get up out of bed after having a baby (along with countless other stuff), but the doctors told us that was unhealthy.

The baby is 24 days old now and just today we were going out for Christmas eve dinner and no fewer than three people chastised my husband and I before we'd even gotten out of our apartment for bringing out such a small baby. It isn't like we were taking an epic journey somewhere either, we were just going out to eat. Your wife may end up wanting to do things the Chinese way in part because of the judging that she'll get if she doesn't. It is easy for me as a foreigner to claim differences in culture and habits, but your wife won't have that to fall back on.

Having the MIL stay for a bit after the birth might not be so bad either, if your wife wants to "zuo yuezi." If she's going to zuo yuezi she'll need someone to cook the traditional soups for her, up or doing the dishes), to make sure she doesn't exert herself, cook special nourishing soups for her, and to allow her to basically sit in bed or on the couch for a month and not do anything except hold the baby. Zuo Yuezi is highly impractical unless you have someone pretty much waiting on you hand and foot for the entire month, but if she doesn't do it she'll cop a lot of flack from her Chinese friends and family. I did it with my son, under pressure from my husband and sisters in law, but this time I only stayed in for 2 weeks and didn't really abide by the rules.

Your wife is caught between two cultures and is going to have a very difficult time.  I think you need to cut her some slack here.  Her mother is going to lose a lot of 'face' if you refuse to have her live with you ...

Even apart from the mother-in-law and the cultural stuff, pregnant women need some slack cut for them. Remember puberty, hormone and other physical changes, spread over a couple of years, that completely screwed up your life? The poor girl goes through one set of changes approximately that intense over the 9 months and another set afterwards.

I've been married twice, had one kid with each, and in both cases relatively minor complications turned otherwise rather pleasant women into something else temporarily. One kid was several weeks late and mom got a tad bitchy around 9 and a half months. No wonder! One woman had a minor difficulty nursing so we had to bottle feed, and she got seriously depressed about this. I think some of the stuff ones hears about post-partum depression is real, at least for some women. This was not her usual attitude to minor setbacks, but with those hormones ...

Neither of these was the woman's fault, neither was a long-term problem, and neither was something I couldn't deal with. However, both were something of a strain for me, situations where a bit of slack needed to be cut.

For what it is worth, our doctors advised the lasses to quit smoking, limit drinking to one glass of wine in an evening, and avoid really strenuous exercise. Thinks like walking and bicycling (not in Chinese traffic!) and especially swimming were recommended. According to those doctors, sex was not a problem, just experiment a bit with positions. At least for me, though, the women lost interest late in the pregnancies.