Think Mama, Think!

Sometimes I think half of the media aimed at mothers assumes we are either scared of our own shadows or brain dead.

Enter Exhibit A:

I follow What to Expect When You're Expecting, the famous guide for mothers-to-be, on Twitter. Earlier today, they tweeted this:

"Working during pregnancy may be as bad as smoking", along with a link to this blog post.

Wow! Considering I read this tweet while at work and 14 weeks pregnant, my interest was definitely piqued. Unfortunately, what followed was shoddy journalism at best and sensationalism or fear mongering at worse.

The article referenced a British study that compared the birth weights of mothers in the UK and the United States who worked into their ninth month of pregnancy with mothers who stopped working in their sixth to eight month of pregnancy. Apparently, they found that the mothers who worked longer while expecting were more likely to have babies with a lower birth weight - on average a half a pound lighter.

Now, since low birth weight is linked with all sorts of medical issues from respitatory problems to developmental delays to failure to thrive, this finding should be of great concern.

I decided to dig further.

The What to Expect article provided an article in the Daily Mail, a British newspaper, as their source. Sadly, the Daily Mail article offered little more by way of details and context. Sure, it included some data on how the study was conducted and who was included, but it included no information as to how low the birth weights were, if those babies displayed any other signs of medical concern or developed problems down the road, what types of work the mothers were engaged and offered no hypothesis as to what caused the discrepancy between the two groups.  It didn't even offer a link to the research or include the name or authors of the study (just the University which conducted it) so an interested reader could easily dive into the data to learn more.

I guess the average mom doesn't care to comb through studies to analyze the average journalist's conclusions.

Too bad. I certainly do.

My obsession with "checking the data" began when I was expecting. I'd read various articles regarding the safety of epidurals and the necessity of cesarian sections and began to doubt the accuracy of what I was reading. Turns out they aren't as safe or as necessary as we're sometimes lead to believe (and yes, I had an epidural. Doesn't mean it was safe, but it did save me from a c-section).

Next was the infamous uproar regarding the "Cry it Out" sleep training method. As a Mama who let her baby cry some in order to learn to sleep on his own, the scary articles and blogs that claim it can damage your child emotionally for life and even cause brain damage were certainly something I studied closely. Like before, I found when you read the actual studies behind these articles, the research cited is often dubious or unclear.

For example, the claims of brain damage included data on infants sadly left to cry for hours a day in foreign orphanages, receiving little to no physical comfort from a care giver. And the studies on long term emotional damage looked at children who experienced severe tragedies and trauma like the Columbine massacre.

Yeah, that totally compares with that one time when I let my son cry for twenty minutes in his crib after a soothing nighttime routine and then I hugged him the next morning. I totally see the similarity.

Given my experience with the creative leaps that some of these articles take, I was skeptical when I read the claim that working while late in pregnancy was as dangerous as smoking. So, what's a thinking Mom to do? Do her own research.

Both articles cited that the babies born to mothers who worked later were on average a half a pound lighter. But they didn't give what the average weight was. A quick Google search reveals that the average birth weight in the United States is 7lbs 7oz, according to Reuters. And, while the article didn't give the average birth weight of the lighter babies, I consider it a safe assumption to estimate it at a 1/2 pound below 7 lbs 7 oz, or just a bit under 7 lbs. Lastly, I looked up the definition of "low birth weight", which the CDC defines as 2500 grams, or 5.5 lbs.

Ok. I'm no math genius, but my handy calculator tells me the babies born to Moms who worked longer are still 1.5 lbs above the classification of "low birth weight". When you're talking about a category of humans that weigh generally no more than nine pounds, that's a pretty significant difference.

And, while I wouldn't consider myself an expert in infant health, whenever I see data on the complications of low birth weight, the babies cited with the problems are nearly always six pounds or below. So excuse me if I'm having a hard time getting all worked up over a bunch of seven pound babies, especially when the article gives me no credible reason to be so.

To make matters worse, neither article offered any explanation for their frightening claim that working in later pregnancy is as dangerous as smoking. While they never specifically state it, I'm guessing that the birth weight discrepancy is roughly the same and hence the comparison?

Given the host of other problems that smoking can cause to an unborn child, which the British study either didn't investigate or find a link to when it comes to working while pregnant, I'm at a loss as to why these journalists would find this a responsible claim to make.

They also didn't share a hypothesis as to why working later into pregnancy may be linked to lower birth weight that would help mothers and employers reduce the risk of any potential complications. Was it the physical demands of work? If so, I need a doctor's note from carrying my 25 lb toddler around all day. If it was the mental demands, I better head to work full time. The two days a week I spend in an office setting are often far less taxing on my nerves and my heart than a day spent dealing with a little person who is investigating his independence. (Note I didn't say they were more fulfilling or better, just easier....)

In other words, not only was the article total crap but it was useless crap, too. Which is, of course, my favorite kind.

I don't mean to diminish the work of these researchers or to imply that working late into pregnancy is good for an expectant mother or her child. In fact, I'm pretty sure working until delivery isn't the best option for a woman, either physically or mentally.

Still, like so many other findings reported in the Mommy Media, this article does nothing to further a rational and informed conversation on the topic of maternity leave and maternal/infant health. All it does is scare a lot of pregnant women. Again, pretty crappy.

And so, until I'm successful in convincing journalists that we Mamas didn't lose all of our brain cells during pregnancy and that we can, in fact, still think, you'll find me crusading against the crappy reporting in the Mommy Media. It's not right to guilt, shame, scare, or push Mommies into any decision regarding pregnancy, delivery, birth, or breast feeding, based on shoddy information. Our babies are far too important and so are their mothers.

As for the low birth weight-work drama, I shall cheekily consider this good news for me. My first son was 8 lbs 6 oz and they say your babies just keep getting bigger with each subsequent child. So, I figure a half pound loss might not be so bad, right?

I think I'll keep my day job.