Interview 44

Age at interview: 33

Brief Outline:

4 months pregnant. Some nausea and cramping in early pregnancy. Plans for a hospital birth. More of this interview can be seen on the Healthtalkonline antenatal screening site as Interview 05.

Background:

Children' First pregnancy. Occupation' lecturer. Marital status' married. Ethnic background' White British.

She was given conflicting advice about whether it was safe to eat bio-yoghurt; her midwife gave...

I think the whole thing about what you're allowed to eat and what you're not allowed to eat - I have the sort of bio-yoghurt thing with fresh fruit for breakfast. and I had asked about this, again with the first GP who had said, 'Oh no, no, no. You can't have anything that has any live cultures in it.' But I'd actually read in the 'Ready Steady Baby' thing that you could eat bio-yoghurts. But then you think, 'Well, you know, maybe I shouldn't, because you're not supposed to eat brie or any veined cheese.' So I thought, you know, 'Well, listeria and things like that.' And when I actually went to see the midwife I asked again, you know, 'What sort of yoghurt?' Because she was saying that yoghurt was good for you to eat. And I said, 'Well, I've been told not to eat anything with live cultures in it' and she said, 'Well, actually if you had developed thrush or anything like that, then we would be advising you to eat it.' So I thought, 'Oh right, okay.' And she actually gave me a little booklet that was very helpful.

The early symptoms of pregnancy felt like pre-menstrual symptoms. She was worried by abdominal...

Actually, going back to the symptoms that I had - symptoms, it's not an illness - but, you know, the feelings that I had when I first was thinking, 'I wonder if I am pregnant?' As I said, I felt really, really pre-menstrual. I mean, my breasts were really sore, I had cramps, crampy sort of pains that, you know, really I would get at the start of my period, which actually worried me slightly. And in none of the information do you actually get that that is - and I actually found on one of the BBC-i pages that as an indication of pregnancy. But nobody had actually said that to me. And I actually said, 'You know, I really do feel like my period could start.' And I think that went on for probably about three weeks to a month, you know, after me knowing. And I did keep thinking, you know, go to the toilet and think, 'Is there going to be blood there?' And my sort of rational mind was saying, 'Well, you know, no, there won't be.' But still thinking, 'God, you know, there might be.' And then that all just stopped. But for somebody who maybe isn't as well informed, I think that could be quite a frightening thing to have.

The first GP they saw explained the risk of early miscarriage very bluntly.

The first appointment that we had with the doctor wasn't actually my own GP. It was obviously my GP practice, but it wasn't my GP and she was, negative's maybe going a little bit too far, but her exact words to us were, because my husband came with me, 'Of course this is very, very early on in your pregnancy and there's no guarantee that you will actually go to full term.' And I mean I was quite horrified. I just thought, 'I really can't believe you've just said that.' My husband was really quite upset by it, and really, you know, 'We shouldn't tell anybody and the risk must be huge,' and I said, 'Well, no, it's not. I mean, it's something like, what, 25% or something?' I said, 'But, you know, I'm really quite horrified that she said that.' But she said, 'But not of course that I'm suggesting that will happen but, you know, you are aware of that.' And I did actually mention it to my own GP when I went back the following week and said, you know, 'If that is what she's saying to other people, then that could really, really upset people.'

What was your own GP's reaction?

Well, she was quite horrified, so I'm sure that the individual will have been spoken to about it.

She felt one GP's advice about exercise in pregnancy was too cautious but another was supportive...

I do things like circuit classes and quite a lot of high impact stuff. And part of me was actually thinking, 'Well, I'm not going to stop doing these things.' I mean, I had actually looked into it myself and then spoken to people at the gym that I go to and said that I was in the very early stages of pregnancy and I didn't want to do anything that was harmful, but at the same time wasn't just going to sit and do nothing for 9 months. Because it's been proven that exercise is actually a good thing to do, particularly, you know, not if you've never done exercise but if you are a regular exerciser. And the first GP I just mentioned that I was still doing circuits and things - 'Well, I don't really know if you should be doing any high impact stuff at all. And I don't know that running is such a good thing because it will jiggle the baby about.' And I was thinking, well, at this stage the baby is probably still just a bundle of cells... and it would be so well protected that my thinking was that if something did happen, then it kind of wasn't meant to be. I mean not doing anything ridiculous, but just doing normal exercise, then if I did have a bleed or something, then it wasn't viable anyway.

And then I'd actually spoken to, as I said, the people at the gym and when I saw my own GP the next week, I'd said that she had said this and she said, 'But all the research that's been done shows that exercise is good for you, that - as I had thought - that at that stage because there's so much sort of lining of the uterus and it's so small that you're not doing anything that's silly. You know, you're not going abseiling or going skiing or horse-riding or anything like that, you're doing sensible exercise.' She said, 'As you get further through you'll probably feel it's uncomfortable for you if you do high impact exercise and you can cause yourself damage to pelvic muscles and things if you carry on doing too much of that.' But she said, 'No, I don't see any reason.' And she said, 'You know, you can't wrap yourself up in a sort of a plastic bubble for the next 9 months. You have to live your life and if something happens then maybe it wasn't meant to be or, you know, there was something wrong.' So she made me feel better, because I'd just this feeling that, you know, 'Okay, I shouldn't be doing anything, running up the stairs or something.' You know, it was very, very bizarre.

What about discussions with midwives, has that been different to your relationship with the GPs?

No, the midwife, again, was, on the exercise thing was particularly positive and said that the more, not the more exercise I could do, but the longer I could do exercise the better. And as long as I was sensible, and not to get too overheated and too out of breath because that would have an effect.