Ask my mom or my sister but I've never been much of a rule follower. I've always found a way to make the rules "bend" for me and what I wanted. I used to break or ruin things "because it was there" and at the ripe age of 9 I was caught playing hookey from ballet class to play softball and got kicked out of dance class. But honestly, what a dumb punishment?! The last thing I wanted was to be in ballet and now you're not making me do it anymore? Thanks stupid.
Anyway, apparently not much has changed as I've gotten older. Every time I question my blind following of one of the many pregnancy rules, I start to do some research and find that a lot of widely known and followed rules are either scientifically unfounded, outdated or just wrong.
See exhibit, well, if you count eggs as A and steak as B I guess it's C. (Exhibit C)
Let's discuss the facts here. Life is busy and pregnancy makes you tired. This made me question just WHY am I not supposed to have coffee. I know some of it is supposed to be about hydration and general well-being. Well I drink on average four 24-oz water bottles just during the work day alone. That doesn't count the average one 24-oz bottle of water consumed during my workouts or any water consumed at home. So only counting the water intake at my desk that's 96-oz of water a day. MINIMUM. So let's just assume hydration isn't really my problem. Anyone who sits between me and the bathroom can attest to this.
So that really only leaves the actual effects of coffee and/or caffeine to debunk. The study, which happened in Goteburg, Sweden (home of the Volvo, so that obviously means I take it that much more seriously) studied 60,000 pregnancies and was inconclusive to the actual danger of caffeine on the fetus itself. It did, however, link caffeine to lower birth weight and longer gestation periods. In theory, if this report is accurate, every 100mg consumed per day delays birth by 5 hours and decreases birth weight by 1oz. The study does not say if this is an aggregate, I would assume it's not because that running tally would mean pregnant women in any coffee-heavy culture would basically never have babies because they'd just stay in there then decrease in size until they disappeared. Not really a viable option.
So say I average 200mg of caffeine per day (I don't drink coffee every day and I don't always have only 1 cup to be perfectly honest) then my baby will be 2oz smaller than it was intended originally and 10 hours later. At the risk of sounding flippant, I think I can live with that. Seeing as I'm putting on pounds like a wrestler trying to make a new weight class, this kid (and in turn, my vagina) will probably benefit from a few less ounces on its birthday.
Another pregnancy rule debunked. At this rate, I should be able to prove pregnant women should juggle samurai swords while dog fighting before August. You're all welcome.
No comments:
Post a Comment