What Things Should Not Be Said To A Pregnant Woman?
There are certain things that should not be said to a pregnant woman, and much less if she is a new mother, even if you have a lot of confidence with her. If you want to help her, do not miss the following tips that we propose below.
Some things you should not say to a pregnant woman
Talk about your weight
Weight is one of the issues that can obsess pregnant women. In fact, many times it is midwives and gynecologists who contribute to this concern. Some propose to closely monitor the changes manifested by the scale, and there are even those who propose to carry out a meticulous control of the calories ingested at each meal.
For this reason, on many occasions telling a pregnant woman that she is gaining a lot of weight will only increase her fear and stress. As a friend or family member of hers, the best thing you can do is encourage her to watch her diet and, once she has given birth, encourage her to try to regain her figure in a reasonable amount of time. Of course, all this without pressuring her or rushing her.
Share your birth experience
When a woman becomes pregnant, one of the first things she does is go to the maternity section of a bookstore and look for books about pregnancy and childbirth. These books most of the time transmit a physiological and medicalized vision of the moment.
For this reason, all pregnant women are interested in knowing what the time of delivery is like from a more personal point of view. If you have already gone through this experience, you will know that each woman is different, and each pregnant woman even more.
Whether your delivery has been wonderful or horrible, you better try to tell them in a neutral way . It is important that you do not arrive at the time of delivery with a predetermined idea, which will surely not be fulfilled. This does not mean that you should not talk about it, but rather that you should emphasize that what you tell them is not final, so they will not have biased information based on someone else’s experience.
When it comes time to give birth, she will be the one to realize that no matter how much she has learned about childbirth, the best learning is from her own experience.
Say that she is too heavy or seems tired
Progesterone and estrogens, together with a high sensitivity to obvious radical changes, are responsible for a series of changes that every pregnant woman undergoes.
Thus, it is normal that there are days when emotionally you are more off and others when you need to vent and talk. In any case, what you should never say to a pregnant woman is that “she is being heavy”, because even if it is true, she has the right to be.
Similarly, it is obvious that fatigue appears more latently during pregnancy. This is due to hormonal changes and the drastic increase in progesterone, the hormone that regulates the reproductive cycle and also has a calming effect. All this, together with the fact that the problems falling asleep at night, make fatigue daily and constant.
Before you consider telling her that she is heavier than normal or that fatigue is taking a toll on her, try to put yourself in her skin, ask her how she is and how she feels.
Encourage her to do the exercise she didn’t do before
Many times, when we have a pregnant woman next to us, we believe that we can become her personal trainer.
We all know that exercise is good for both a pregnant woman and a non-pregnant woman, but if a woman did not exercise before she became pregnant, perhaps the best time to start is not this.
Keep in mind that not all pregnancies are the same, and that many pregnant women experience vomiting and nausea during the nine months. Also, the extra ten or twenty kilos often make just hearing the word “exercise” chilling. So do n’t overwhelm her and let her do what she can and what her body allows.
Many times the advice we give, although loaded with goodwill, ends up overwhelming or confusing the pregnant woman. Therefore, if you want to help her, maybe it is better that you wait for her to ask you for advice or simply want to share with you what she feels. In most cases, what you will prefer is simply a friend who is willing to listen to you.
