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Our mothers and grandmothers - Pregnancy through the ages

chetasuchetasu member
edited October 2014 in May 2015 Moms

So, yesterday I went to visit my mom and she asked me more details about my doctor's visit. In talking to her, I realized how different things are from when she had me and siblings, and my pregnancy now.

For example, she told me she never took prenatal vitamins. She didn't know about them. I then told her about the dildo-like contraption I had during my appointment and that's why the baby looks so big in the pictures. She said she'd never heard of that. As I was leaving, she invited DH and I to lunch next weekend for ceviche and fish tacos. I told her I couldn't have the fish tacos because of the mercury in the kind of fish she uses. Again, I get a look of "what are you talking about?" Now this is a woman who gave birth to four healthy children, but I guess she either thought she'd let nature run its course, or all of the information we have just wasn't around back then. No epidural either during delivery. She said maybe they offered it to her, but she was too much in pain to understand what it was lol. My SIL asked her to be in the delivery room for my nephew (her first grandchild). She'd never been more fascinated in her life. She said she'd never seen it from that angle.

I have a feeling that if I talk to most of the women in my family, they'll all be the same: Your period stops, nine months later you deliver a kid. My grandmother delivered a lot of her children at home.

Anyone else have these kinds of stories? Anyone else feel like their parents/aunts/grandmas are looking at you like you're speaking a different language?

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Re: Our mothers and grandmothers - Pregnancy through the ages

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  • abbalishabbalish member

    I was just talking to my grandmom yesterday, and she told me that her grandmother had 9 kids and not one of them in a hospital.  She also said that when she had her kids (in the 40's and 50's) she drank and smoked throughout her whole pregnancy.  It's so strange to me how quickly that culture has changed.

    Awhile back my mom told me that when she had my brother and sister in the early 1970's, the standard was to be knocked out and the babies were delivered with forceps (which honestly doesn't sound like a terrible idea to me, haha).  By the time I was born in 1981 that practice had changed.

    BFP: 8/26/2014
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  • chetasuchetasu member
    Pintobean39 said:
    Now after I said all that I'm totally blowing my MIL and my aunts mind because we did IVF. So we conceived a child back in June. They took my 19 eggs out of me took my husband sperm injected it in my eggs. Let them grow for 5 days, the 10 that were left were frozen and a biopsy was done. 2 weeks later they told me we had 3 normal, 2 girls and a boy. Then on 9-11 they let 2 thaw out and put them back in me. I even have a picture of one. Now I'm pregnant with a baby that was conceived on 6-12. My aunt seriously thought they had been growing since June and they were about 3 months old. I still have an embryo frozen that I could try to have later which would be this babies twin. Now that shit blows people's mind.

    Mind definitely blown.

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  • texasmama15texasmama15 member
    Pintobean39 said:
     I still have an embryo frozen that I could try to have later which would be this babies twin. Now that shit blows people's mind.

    Forgive my lack of education on this topic but an identical twin? This is very interesting. 

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  • Pintobean39Pintobean39 member
    texasmama15 said:


    Pintobean39 said:

     I still have an embryo frozen that I could try to have later which would be this babies twin.

    Now that shit blows people's mind.


    Forgive my lack of education on this topic but an identical twin? This is very interesting. 


    No, fraternal twins. Identical twins are 1 egg that splits fraternal twins are 2 eggs fertilized at the same time.
    Fucking bump!!!!
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  • texasmama15texasmama15 member
    Pintobean39 said:
    Pintobean39 said:
    Pintobean39 said:
     I still have an embryo frozen that I could try to have later which would be this babies twin. Now that shit blows people's mind.

    Forgive my lack of education on this topic but an identical twin? This is very interesting. 
    No, fraternal twins. Identical twins are 1 egg that splits fraternal twins are 2 eggs fertilized at the same time.
    Haha, YES! I did know that. Well now I feel dumb. Can we pretend this never happened?  #-o
    The bump NEVER forgets! :-)
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  • lgsdesignerlgsdesigner member

    My mother is a nurse at a hospital, so she has a different view than most. However—she is VERY pro natural birth and non-epidural, so when I had to get a c/s with my son and daughter, she sort of talked down to me about it saying “It wasn’t really THAT necessary. Any woman can push a baby out if they have to…even if the baby is in distress!” (she had 4 kids all natural)

    She just feels an type of medical technology is unnecessary (even though my son would have probably died without a c-section).

     

    As far as food—I eat some things that are more “risky”, but I don’t go overboard. I will still eat a little deli meat, and fish that contains mercury, foods with nitrates (bacon), etc. I just don’t do it often.

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  • tashad18tashad18 member
    I recently found my mom's ultrasound photos of me from the late 80's. Technology has come a long way. :)


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  • beezybabybeezybaby member
    Having lived in a developing country for my first two pregnancies, I feel like I got a taste of what it was like for our mothers, and even our grandmothers.  
    One lady who was  due around the same time as me asked where I would be delivering. I told her and asked her the same question.  She replied, "oh, well my first was born on the couch at my grandmothers house, my second was born in my own bed, which was nice. I'm hoping this one will be born at my friend Rosa's house, maybe in the kitchen because they have electricity in there."
    Additionally they are still cautioned not to exercise, at all, are told they should only gain 1 or 2 pounds a month, and have a bunch of old wives tales/home remedies that border on witchcraft or voodoo.  It was very strange for me to have an old lady spit on her hand and make a cross on my abdomen to relieve my heartburn....oh, and they believe that denying a craving during pregnancy is what causes birthmarks.  It was a very strange mix of old and almost modern.

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  • sevillanagalsevillanagal member

    abbalish said:

    Awhile back my mom told me that when she had my brother and sister in the early 1970's, the standard was to be knocked out and the babies were delivered with forceps (which honestly doesn't sound like a terrible idea to me, haha).  By the time I was born in 1981 that practice had changed.


    This was still the prevailing practice in Spain in the 80s when I was born. My mom says the doctor was in a hurry to get to his golf tee time. She doesn't even remember giving birth.
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  • marijaa333marijaa333 member
    My mother took vitamins, had ultrasounds (not this early, though) and carefully planned her menu, following one of the editions of the Good Housekeeping Book of Pregnancy https://www.amazon.com/Good-Housekeeping-Illustrated-Book-Pregnancy/dp/0688165583

    She didn't have any of the genetic tests, though! 

    My grandmother, however, died very young, never having seen a vacuum cleaner, let alone an ultrasound machine!

    As for the fish, today's probably has much more mercury than the fish of decades past... 
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  • lupineauralupineaura member
    edited October 2014
    Another thing that's changed is recovery time. Each generation of women seem to get less and less. It starts in the hospital. I think my mom said that when my grandmother gave birth in the hospital, nurses were still helping her put her legs over the end of the bed several days after she had the baby. My mom also got several days of hospital time; more when she gave birth outside the U.S. When I gave birth to my daughter, insurance only allowed me two "days" hospital. Because my daughter was born at 11:45pm, and a day starts at 12 AM, that means my first day was 15 minutes long. It turned out to be a problem because I developed a fever in response to the pertussis vaccine (and we knew this was a risk. I had a bad reaction to the vaccine as a child, which is why I did not get it while pregnant). In addition, my daughter's first round of blood work required follow up, which meant that we had to take her back to the hospital after we were discharged. Both of these would've been avoided if I'd had just one more day in the hospital. Well, the fever wouldn't have been avoided, but I would've had some nurses on hand to help. I also think women are being pressured to be "up and around" much faster than they used to be. When our society was a little bit more communal, new mothers were expected to just take care of the baby and do very little else. And don't get me started on maternity leave in United States… (Edited to try to fix mobile formatting)
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