To Believe or Not to Believe?

Debunking Common Pregnancy Myths By Kelly D. Burgess

Wendy Miles, a resident of Allison Park, Pa., knew the sex of her oldest children before they were born. Not through the science of ultrasound or amniocentesis, but through the much older method of the wedding ring swing.

"My mother's friend had a method that she said had never been wrong," Miles recalls. "She had me tie my wedding ring on a piece of thread, then my husband held it suspended over my belly. The friend predicted by the ring's movement what I was having. She was right both times, but, personally, I still think it was luck."

Since then, Miles has had one more child. That time, her mother's friend wasn't around to do the wedding ring test, so Miles' mother did the predicting instead – based on how Miles was carrying the baby. She, too, was right, but, in spite of their track record, Miles isn't any more convinced of the legitimacy of either of those methods.

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health found that Miles is right to be skeptical. In the September 1999 issue of the journal Birth, they asked 104 pregnant women to use whatever method they liked, including folklore, dreams and hunches, to guess their unborn child's sex. The women were right 55 percent of the time – about the same as would occur for a random guess.

What the research didn't note was that the idea is not necessarily to be right, and not many people will start painting the nursery in pink or blue based on how their wedding ring twirls. Most pregnancy myths are just the opportunity to have a little fun. Others can be more harmful.

When Jen Kissel, who lives in Pennsylvania, told people she was going to have her babies delivered at a birthing center by midwives, she was told, variously, that midwives are witches, and that her babies would be born with cleft palates, without faces or dead. She was appalled that people could be so ignorant and insensitive.

Lori Albright, who, as a certified nurse midwife at The Midwife Center for Birth and Women's Health in Pittsburgh, Pa., delivered Kissel's three healthy, perfect babies, wasn't surprised. In the 13 years she's worked as a midwife, she's heard it all. Here's what she has to say about the most common myths of pregnancy:

• If a mother has a lot of indigestion, the baby will have a lot of hair. This is one Albright hears a lot and is happy to debunk. "I've seen plenty of mothers with terrible indigestion give birth to very bald babies," she says.
  
  
• A woman should always lie on her left side during pregnancy. While it's true that lying on the left side improves placental and kidney profusion, the problem is that sometimes a woman will take it too far and end up with sores. Albright says if they have a mother with high blood pressure, they recommend that she lie on her left side for about 10 minutes twice a day. Otherwise, a woman should lie in whatever position is comfortable for her.
  
  
• Umbilical cord myths. There are several such myths, the most common being that a pregnant woman shouldn't put her arms over her head because the cord will wrap around the baby's neck. Actually, the movement of the mother doesn't really affect the umbilical cord – unless she stands on her head! These ancient myths probably stem from a primal fear that a baby will be strangled in utero by the cord, or the cord will kink and cut off the baby's lifeline. The fact, says Albright, is that the cord is often around the baby's neck because when a baby is in the proper head down position, that's the most natural place for the cord to settle. As for kinking, if it's a healthy pregnancy, the cord is coated with plenty of Wharton's jelly, which Albright describes as "like good packing peanuts." This jelly provides so much protection around the vessels, it's virtually impossible to kink.
  
  
• A pregnant woman shouldn't take baths. Albright thinks a warm bath is a wonderful way for anyone to relax – pregnant or not. The danger is when the water temperature is too hot. In the first trimester it can cause developmental problems in the fetus, later in pregnancy it can cause preterm labor. In general, a pregnant woman should avoid anything that raises her body temperature above 102 or 103 degrees, whether it's hot baths, fevers, or Jacuzzis and hot tubs. Also, if a pregnant woman is leaking fluid or bleeding, she should avoid bathing altogether and consult her care provider.
  
  
• Guessing a baby's gender. These are probably the most prevalent myths. The wedding ring swing theory has been around for years, as has the idea that the clue to a baby's sex lies in how the mother is carrying the baby, or in the rate of the baby's heartbeat. The oddest may be the Drano experiment. The test calls for the mother to mix some of her urine with Drano and determine the gender based on the resultant color. All have been scientifically debunked in various studies throughout the years, but they seem to thrive anyway.

Jenna Buechel, also a Pennsylvania resident, thinks it's because people are interested in pregnant women and, often, these well-known myths are a way for someone to strike up a conversation. She remembers one particular time when she was in a store and an old woman, after studying her very carefully, unequivocally announced she was going to have a boy.

"I already knew it was a girl because I had an ultrasound," said Buechel. "But I didn't want to make her feel bad so I just smiled." Now expecting her third child, Buechel will again rely on science, not speculation, to end the suspense.

Another thing Buechel can probably rely on is that there will be plenty of people more than willing to give her their opinion based on something their mother or grandmother told them. Dr. Michael Benson, a Chicago-area obstetrician and author of Pregnancy Myths: An Obstetrician Demystifies Pregnancy from Conception to Birth, says pregnancy myths are just as prevalent as they've ever been – even in our enlightened Internet age.

"As long as there has been verbal or written speech, people have been inclined to turn to myths to make order out of their lives," says Dr. Benson. "There is still a lot we don't know about pregnancy, and as long as people are trying to understand what is happening to them, there will be myths."

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