Author: AmandaRW

I know it is. Somehow. Nate and Sam died of hypoxia, and I worry that I caused it.
Because hypoxia means a lack of oxygen, here is the list of crazy thoughts in my head:

1. My left hip hurt. A lot. It is probably arthritis. As a result, I often slept on my right side, even though all the pregnancy books tell you not to do it. Did sleeping on my right side kill my babies?
2. Also, due to the painful hip, I took  a lot of baths. As soon as I got home from work, I jumped in the bathtub. I added bath salts and lovely scented bubbles. I ran the water jets. The water was hot. Did the hot water kill my babies?
3. I went to Denver. Okay, this is a little more far-fetched, but three months before they died, I went to Denver for a work trip. I spent five days in the mile-high city! Maybe the high altitude meant they did not get enough oxygen and died? Three months later….
4. Speaking of work, I worked right up until I was 34 weeks pregnant! My job does not involve heavy lifting or being on my feet, I sit at a computer all day. But that does not mean I was not stressed out about all the things I had to get done before taking maternity leave. Did I somehow work too hard and kill my babies?
5. Brie. I have a secret weak spot for brie. Smother it on French bread and I am in heaven. This is another pregnancy no-no, which I did anyway, because I love brie too much. I’m pretty sure the reason is because unpasteurized cheeses have a higher risk of listeria, and that has nothing to do with a lack of oxygen. Still, could this be the reason?
6. I made a joke. Actually, I made lots of jokes. Sometimes I think I’m pretty hilarious. But when I found out I was having twins I was not over the moon, but instead a little freaked out. I made a joke in my e-mail to friends that I was stuck with twins because I could not send one back. Ha ha, looks like you can send them both back, the joke’s on me! Maybe karma killed my babies?

I could go on. In the nearly seven (yikes!) years since Nate and Sam died, I have had plenty of ridiculous reasons pass through my mind. I keep thinking of new ones. But I have to let them go. I have to. When blame and doubt creep into your mind, you have to remind yourself that you were doing the best you could with the information you had at the time. That’s all any of us can do. Forgiveness is one of the most powerful things. First, you have to forgive yourself.

This post first appeared on Still Standing Magazine.

I somehow found myself in a flame war online. I didn’t plan on it (does anyone?), but before I knew it, I had to respond. However, like most of these things, the topic is more nuanced than we allow for in short online comments. Maybe this is something that needs to said, or at least something I need to get off my chest.

I’m really bothered by the connection many baby loss moms make with the pro-life movement, and I’m concerned that we may be causing a whole lot of hurt as a result. Right now, mothers who have made heartbreaking choices are deeply grieving the loss of their babies. And, not only do they face the pain and grief of baby loss–the sense of being ostracized from their friends and family and all that goes with that–they are not welcome in many online communities for baby loss moms. That’s wrong.

I can appreciate that someone who is struggling with infertility, or has lost a child, really, truly has a hard time feeling compassion for someone who has made a choice to terminate a pregnancy. Those of us who have disabled children may be hurt too, by the suggestion that no life is better than living with a disability. But when someone comes to the baby loss community looking for love and support, they are past the point where a decision has been made, so there is no benefit to berating them for making a choice different from your own. There is no going back in time to change their minds.

Each person arrives at her decision based on her own experiences and life, and those experiences may be radically different from yours. We may reach out to this community in order to feel a little less alone, but the truth is, we will always feel a little bit that way because we always are. No matter how similar we are to one another, we each have very unique circumstances that have brought us here. Even our spouses, who we love and cherish and who lost the same baby (or babies) we did, do not experience the emotions, grief or loss in the same way we do.

This isn’t to say that I cannot sympathize with the pro-life movement. I live in Canada, where there are no legal restrictions on abortion. It means that when a baby dies in utero, there is no legal recognition, and that hurts. Had my sons died due to medical incompetence, I would not get any financial compensation had I sued. The law simply doesn’t allow for it. This legal position contributes to a society that denies recognition of our children, and makes it easier for them to be forgotten and ignored, and for us as grieving mothers to be shunned and treated as though we do not deserve the same compassion as other grieving mothers.

Being pro-choice does not mean that one endorses abortion, or that one would choose it for oneself. It simply means that you believe the choice is yours alone, and you do not get to make the choice for anyone else. That’s why, politically, I am pro-choice. I cannot imagine the pain that mothers who have had to choose live every day, and I can only say that I am thankful not to have to be in that position. My heart aches for them, and I wish only to show them compassion, love and friendship. I want all baby loss moms (and dads!) to be welcome here.

For those who are wondering, I believe in God. I do my best to live a life that follows Christ. For me, that means this wonderful fact: I am forgiven. It also means this wonderful fact: so are you. We are all called to forgiveness. I don’t seek to change anyone’s opinion on abortion. I just wish to ask that there is more compassion in how and where one expresses views. The baby loss community should be a place where those of us who are grieving can find solace.

It is not a place for politics.

If you are a mother who has made a heartbreaking choice, there is also a special place for you online. Find it at: http://www.aheartbreakingchoice.com/

This post originally appeared at Still Standing Magazine.

My first miscarriage was the Mother’s Day weekend after the boys died. I had a presentation to make for work and just before it started, I went to the bathroom to get ready. I spotted blood and had my coworkers take over while I went straight to the emergency room. Just 8 months after the boys died, I was still raw and grieving their loss and wasn’t in the best place emotionally to begin with. Faced with another pregnancy failure, the emergency room was the wrong place to be. The doctor I saw was not sympathetic, although I think he thought he was. It’s a teaching hospital, so he was a resident, and he made a joke about not being all that good with an ultrasound. He said that he could not find a heartbeat, but that it was possible that was due to his poor skill, and I’d just have to make an appointment with my obstetrician sometime next week. He also said two things: “Either you’re having a miscarriage, in which case I’m afraid there isn’t anything I can do to stop it. Or, you’re not having a miscarriage, and there’s nothing to worry about, go home and rest and talk to your obstetrician next week.”

Even if he wasn’t able to see my full chart, he should have been able to see that my obstetrician was the high-risk specialist. And the mere fact that I decided that this was important enough to come into the emergency department should have been a signal that, at least to me, this was an emergency. This is what the patient-centred care movement is all about – it is the patient who decides, not the doctor.

Emergency rooms should be designed to care for people in both physical and psychological crisis. For many loss moms, Mother’s Day is a day of heightened emotional pain. If you’re in crisis, you should expect your health professionals to care for you and deliver appropriate medical care. The doctor may have been telling the truth when he said he couldn’t stop my miscarriage from happening, but he could have been more compassionate in recognizing the emotional impact this was having on me.

If you had poor care during your miscarriage, you can help to enact change. Contact your hospital’s patient advisor or ombudsman to let them know about your experience. There is research available that shows several options to improve care, such as having a nurse practitioner in the emergency room[1], or obstetrical nurses[2], or referral to the obstetrical unit right away[3],[4]. Approximately 1-2% of emergency room visits are for miscarriages or threatened miscarriages, so this is a fairly frequent thing for these doctors to see.

This is a tough weekend for a lot of us. Some of us do not have living children. Some of us have lost our mothers too, making this weekend twice as hard. It is easy to feel left out of the celebrations. As I lay in bed that first Mother’s Day weekend, I wasn’t yet strong enough to face the world. I was angry and hurt. Making meaning of your miscarriage can be a step on the path to healing. If you can commit to helping improve care at your local hospital for the next woman, you’ll have made a difference. By choosing to take a small step, I was able to join the celebration again, to feel part of the connected whole. I may not have the power to stop a miscarriage, but I do have the power to change the world.

What are you doing to change the world this Mother’s Day? It can be as awe-inspiring as Katy Larsen’s Delivering Hope or as simple as resolving to get out of bed on Sunday and not let the day get you down. Post your ideas here to inspire other loss moms!

[1] Webster-Bain D. The successful implementation of nurse practitioner model of care for threatened or inevitable miscarriage. Australian Nursing Journal. 18(8):30-3, 2011 Mar.
[2] Bacidore V. Warren N. Chaput C. Keough VA. A collaborative framework for managing pregnancy loss in the emergency department. JOGNN – Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic, & Neonatal Nursing. 38(6):730-8, 2009 Nov-Dec.
[3] Adolfsson A. Tullander-Tjornstrand K. Larsson PG. Decreased need for emergency services after changing management for suspected miscarriage. Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica. 90(8):921-3, 2011 Aug.
[4] Wilson W. An A&E nurse’s fast-track for potential miscarriage patients. Accident & Emergency Nursing. 8(1):9-12, 2000 Jan.

This post first appeared on Still Standing Magazine.

Five years ago, I walked out the fertility doctor’s office with the first optimism I’d had in some time. There in the waiting room was an old friend I hadn’t seen since we were in school together. I was not really sure of the etiquette, so I pretended I didn’t see her, then sent her a quick e-mail as soon as I got back to my desk. I apologized for not saying hello, but that I did not think it was the right time or place and didn’t want her to feel awkward. We rekindled our friendship immediately, although it was short lived. We were on different paths. That same day in that same doctor’s office, I was finding out I was pregnant again, this time with my daughter. She was being told by the doctor he did not think it was ethical for him to continue to take her money. After spending over $70,000 on fertility treatments, the chances of success were just too low. It was time for her to call it quits. About 3 months after reconnecting, she sent me a very nice note, letting me know that it was too painful for her right now and that she wished me all the best. I admire her so much for her honesty.

Whether we end up having living children or not, how do we know when to call it quits?  For many of us who have lost children, it seems the answer is always ‘just one more’. Just one more child and my family will be complete. Just one more try and this time, this time for sure I’ll get pregnant.

I have started to feel comfortable with the ambivalence. I know my family will never be complete and that so many circumstances are beyond my control. Sure, I am sad about it, but I am comfortable with the sadness. I don’t know for certain, but I imagine the process takes much longer when you have no living children. It does not help when  the messages received by society are that infertility treatments are a cure-all and success is guaranteed. Incredibly, even surveys of female medical professionals, showed that they overestimated how easy it would be to get pregnant. Most people assume that childless couples were always childless by choice, even when that isn’t true.

Whether you have reached the point where you’re ready to call it quits, we can make the world a better place by recognizing that other people may not be in the same stage you are. Next time you meet someone without kids, try making the assumption that it was not by choice and that they are okay with it. It might change how you treat your childless friends.

And to my friend, if you come across this, I miss you. I hope that you have found your joy.

This post first appeared at Still Standing Magazine.

I have been criticized for writing for Still Standing. Some of the other writers here have as well. Not criticizing the style of our writing, but the topic. Quite a few of us have family, friends, coworkers, neighbours and others who are disturbed, upset, ashamed or even angered because we choose to write openly and honestly about grief, the death of our children, the death of our dreams for future children, the challenges, frustrations and agony of infertility and other related topics. We’ve been told it is an unhealthy obsession. I’ve been told my sons died over 6 years ago and I shouldn’t focus on it so much. Friends and family who have complimented me on my writing, or encouraged me to remember my sons have faced criticism too! They are accused of facilitating my obsession. I might even understand where these feelings were coming from if they came from people I don’t know. After all, if you only knew me through my writing for Still Standing, you might be forgiven for thinking that all I do is lie at home in a dark room crying over my sons.

But I don’t. I write a lot, mostly painfully boring academic stuff. (Go bore yourself here). My life is filled with baking cookies with my kids, joking with my friends about Wine  Book Club, occasionally even reading books, my work, church, my favourite tv shows, fun with my husband and all the other things that make up my life. It is a full life with lots of joy and wonder and grace.

But there’s still a hole. And to pretend it isn’t there doesn’t make it go away.

Arguably, Victor Hugo was one of the greatest writers of all time. He wrote a lot of beautiful poems about the death of his daughter, Leopoldine. He also wrote a lot of other stuff too. I hope when he wrote Demain, des l’aube, four years after his daughter died, no one told him to stop writing about her. Victor Hugo lost 4 of his 5 children (one as a 6-month old baby, one as a teenager, two as adults). His only surviving child spent much of her adult life in an insane asylum. I can hardly blame him for being obsessed with grief.

Writing about Nate and Sam for Still Standing, about how grief changes and ebbs and flows throughout our life, is just a small part of who I am and what I do. We all have many facets to our lives. I didn’t stop being a daughter and a sister and a wife when I became a mother. I didn’t stop loving Nate and Sam when Rebecca and Alexander were born. My grief is a hole that will always remain, but it isn’t the sum of who I am.

“The months, the days, the waves on the sea and eyes that cry
All pass beneath the blue sky
The grass grows and children die,
I know, oh my God !”

–Victor Hugo in A Villequier (translation mine)

This post originally appeared on Still Standing Magazine.

There is a lot of stigma against mental health. Labeled as crazy, people who have mental health issues suffer rejection by family, friends and co-workers. This is shocking, considering an estimated 1 out of 5 people will have mental health concerns in their lifetime. It should come as no surprise to you that those of us who have lost a baby or who struggle with infertility have much higher rates. Within a year of the death of their child, a full 50% of mothers were diagnosed with a mental illness, with about 30% being diagnosed with depression / post-partum depression or similar illness and another 20% with an anxiety disorder, such as post-traumatic stress disorder.[1] Similar results exist for childless women, who report having approximately 3 times the risk of depression or anxiety when compared to women who have never experienced infertility.[2] Considering that mental health issues are often under-diagnosed, the rates may be much higher.

I am a PTSD survivor. I used to struggle with nightmares and panic attacks. While most friends and co-workers were supportive and helpful, that was not always true. One former boss even yelled at me in the middle of my panic attack “What the hell is wrong with you? Can’t you even stand to be around pregnant people?” Ummm… no, I can’t. I had no choice but to recover from my PTSD. One of the common treatments for PTSD is gradual re-exposure, and working at the hospital where I gave birth, with the same doctors and nurses and going through two subsequent pregnancies meant getting up, going to work, walking those same halls. At first, it meant debilitating fear and elaborate avoidance techniques: to not go to the same floor, to not do anything that reminded me of the day my boys died. I still suffer from huge anxiety around pregnant women who are not members of the baby loss community. I still occasionally have nightmares that I am unable to keep my children alive. However, on the other hand, I no longer have sleepless nights. I actively try talking about my sons and love talking to other baby loss moms about their children. Even as I type this, the radio is playing Sibelius’ Finlandia, (Be Still My Soul) which we sang at my sons’ funeral, and I am smiling while thinking of them.

If you are in the depths of depression or an anxiety disorder, I write this to let you know there are treatments that work. It may be a long road to healing, but others have travelled it before. Please take charge of your health by ensuring your doctor knows what you need. There are effective treatments for depression, anxiety and PTSD and finding the right one for you is worth it.

It is the time of year when my Facebook ads and e-mail are bombarded with “weight loss tips”. Advertisers assume that because I am a woman of a certain age, I must be dissatisfied with my body. If only they knew….

As a woman who struggled through the death of my sons and infertility challenges, my body shows the changes of five pregnancies in five years. I gained 55 pounds with the twins and the stretch marks, scars and extra skin never went away. Especially while my second and third pregnancies failed, the tiger stripes were a constant reminder of my body’s failure to keep my babies alive. I didn’t hate my body because I didn’t look good in a bikini or because my skin was a little pudgier than before. I hated my body because I blamed it and myself for their death. Somehow, in some way, my body had let me down, let my sons down, when I needed it the most. I am a feminist. I firmly believe that my value as a person goes beyond my body, my looks and my ability to have children. Yet I still felt trapped by my thinking that I was worthless, or worth less, because I could not have a baby. Every morning as I got dressed I would stare at my tiger stripes, my twin skin, and loathe my body. I was a failure as a woman because I could not have a baby.

A new year is a time of new resolutions, which is why I am seeing all those ads for weight loss. Here are my body resolutions for the year:

1. My body does not represent who I am. I am greater than the sum of my parts.
2. My ability to bear children (or not!) does not give me worth as a person. I have value either way.
3. My body is not perfect and never will be. My tiger stripes and twin skin make me fierce and proud. I am a survivor. I can face any challenge. You can see it in my skin.
4. I will remind myself every day: My sons’ death was not my fault.

This was originally posted at Still Standing Magazine.

Susan Sontag wrote, “All photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s mortality…all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt.” The phrase memento mori comes from the Latin to “remember death” and it commonly refers to postmortem photography, used frequently in the late 19^th and early 20^th century. My fellow contributor, Carly Marie’s recent experience on Facebook has got me thinking about our memento mori.

If you have not been following what happened, Carly Marie issued a challenge for the month of October called Capture Your Grief. Her plan was beautiful, issuing a daily challenge to take a photograph that expressed your grief or your healing process and post it to a Facebook page. I participated last year and loved it. On the second last day of the challenge, someone outside the baby loss community posted nasty comments on one of the included images, one of our memento mori, and it rapidly spread. I think we can all imagine the hurtful things that were said, often because we have heard them before. “Don’t show those pictures.” “That’s disgusting” “You’re sick”, etc. It is yet another reminder that some people do not want to acknowledge our children. They want us to hide them away and pretend they never existed.

So how did we get here? Why, in the early days of photography, did we take photos of our deceased? When did we stop, and why? How can people be so offended by simple images, most of which are tastefully done, not showing gore or disease? I decided to do a little research…

I found people have taken photographs, beautiful photographs, of the dead for as long as there have been cameras. They’ve done it in many cultures throughout history: in Russia, Iceland and Japan, in the UK, in communities of Hungarian immigrants in Ohio and among African Americans in Harlem, NY. Photos of the dead and dying are celebrated in the art and journalism worlds, as evidenced by many of the most famous Pulitzer Prize winning images. The 2006, 2007 and 2008 feature photography winners all were depictions of death, grieving and loss. Almost all the  breaking news photography winners are depictions of death as well, from images from the Haitian earthquake, to the aftermath of a bombing in Kabul. Many of us were not fortunate enough to have professional photos taken. Instead, we have blurry images, taken in haste by a shaky hand. Yet in each image I have seen, great care was taken to make our babies look their best. They were held lovingly, teddy bears or hats covering areas where the skin is starting to shed, and often retouched to appear less clinical. Perhaps that is a clue to people’s revulsion. Unlike the images in the news, where no attempt is made to make death ‘pretty’, our attempts to normalize the death of our children disturbs people. It is okay if we can pretend that death is something that happens to other people, but a photo of a mom holding her child, tears in her eyes, is too close to home. They see their own family photos, not that different from ours, and know that it could just as easily have been them.

Many critics of memento mori believe this is a practice from the past, when it was harder to obtain photographs of someone while they were still alive. This is not true either. Surveys in the late-20^th century of photographers, photo processers and funeral home directors all indicate that the practice never went away, although maybe people were less likely to display their photos publicly. For some reason, in the past few decades, we have stopped sharing our memento mori. Maybe now that taking photos with our phones has become easier, and sharing photos through Facebook, Instagram and other social media sites becomes common, we will return to a time where photos of the dead are no more unusual than photos of the living.

Amazingly, new research is showing that sharing our memories, like these photographs, can help us heal. A study in the UK of 160 women who had a stillborn baby showed that those who were happy with their opportunities to share memories had better mental health, even 10 years later. Talking and writing about our experiences, showing our pictures and hand and foot prints, having others acknowledge our loss makes it easier for us to process our grief. The study also found that only half the mothers shared their memories and mostly only within their immediate social circle. This is where the problem with Facebook lies. It is so easy for our memories to be shared beyond our immediate friends and family, to lose control over our own narrative.

How should we strike the balance between needing to share and protecting ourselves from harm? Do you get support in ‘real life’, or come online to find a safe space to talk about your children? Can we find a way to encourage those who are hostile to our babies to be more open?

This post first appeared on Still Standing Magazine.

After the boys died, I ordered copies of my medical records. I’m not entirely sure why. Partly because I wanted to see for myself what mistakes might have been made. Partly because I had been given Ativan. My memory of their birth was rather hazy. And partly because this record was one of the few tangible pieces of evidence of their existence and I wanted anything – anything! – that reminded me of that.

When the records arrived, I opened the envelope with some hesitation because I did not know exactly what I would find. When I looked at the nursing notes, my heart ached for what I saw. And not just because the nurses and social worker wrote down the details of their birth. All those things I could not hope to remember in my shock and medication-induced confusion. No, my heart ached because the nursing care notes were already stained with tears. Before I touched these pages someone I didn’t even know, cried for my boys and me. Maybe it was the nurse as she carefully documented my labour progress. Maybe it was the social worker as she read the pages before her consultation with us. It might have been the resident, or the attending physician or even the anaesthesiologist, who I remember was fighting back the tears as he explained the epidural procedure and apologized that there was only so much he could do to take away the pain. The tears might even have belonged to the pathologist and his resident, crying as they read the care notes during the autopsy in an attempt to find the answers, answers that were not there. I spent only 24 hours in hospital from arrival to discharge and during that time, my sons touched a lot of lives, each person having to document their interactions with me and with them in the medical record.

Perhaps it does not matter whose tears they were. They were proof that my sons’ lives mattered. That someone else cared deeply. For that, I am truly grateful and will forever remember that nurses grieve too.

Have you ever connected with your nurse, midwife, obstetrician or other health care provider since your loss? Are you a health care professional who grieves for the losses of your patients? What are your thoughts on this connection?

A great video on a nurse’s grief in stillbirth has been done by a nurse-researcher at York University. I got the idea for the title of this post from there.

This post first appeared on Still Standing Magazine.

Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness day on Oct. 15, 2017 draws our attention to a bleak statistic — an estimated one in four pregnancies end in a loss. Many of these are early miscarriages. But in Canada about one in 125 pregnancies end in a stillbirth — that is, the death of a fetus in utero after 20 weeks gestation.

Countries such as Korea and Finland have much lower rates of stillbirth, so we know that there is more we can do to prevent it. There is research on the risk factors that increase the chances of a stillbirth. Yet many pregnancy guides do not give enough information about stillbirth, in the belief that women do not want to be frightened about pregnancy loss.

Information about how to prevent stillbirth needs to get into the hands of women who need it, even if it leads to an uncomfortable conversation. As a medical librarian, my job is to connect people to trusted information about their health. When dealing with a taboo topic, such as stillbirth, this is even more challenging as both health care providers and women might be afraid of increasing anxiety, rather than improving health.

We also want to ensure that women who have had a stillbirth in the past and may have slept on their back do not feel guilt over doing so. I know, because I myself have had a stillbirth. With the passage of time, I cannot honestly answer how I might have slept that night when my twins died, but it is still something that worries me.

While some risk factors are not things most pregnant women can change, there are two very simple things women can do, to lower the odds.

1. Count the kicks

There are two methods described in the medical literature about how to count your baby’s kicks: the Sadovsky method and the Cardiff method. In the Cardiff method, you count 10 movements and record how much time it takes for you to reach 10. In the Sadovsky method, you are asked to count how many movements you feel within a specific time frame, usually 30 minutes to two hours. In either case, the most important consideration is that you should be aware of your baby’s normal movements.

Any decrease in fetal movement should prompt a phone call or visit to your health care provider immediately. We don’t shame people for seeking medical advice when they have chest pains. Reduced fetal movements are similar to chest pains — a warning sign that something could be wrong. See your doctor or midwife and don’t delay or feel guilty for taking up their time!

2. Don’t sleep on your back

At last month’s International Stillbirth Alliance conference, several researchers presented information to show that back sleeping increased the risk of stillbirth.

In the first study, researchers in New Zealand put 10 pregnant women who were otherwise healthy into MRI scanners, to see if they could see changes in blood flow when they were lying on their backs or on their left side. They found that cardiac output (how efficiently the heart pumps blood) was the same in both positions.

However the blood flow and diameter of the inferior vena cava were reduced when lying on their backs. This affects how blood flows back to the heart from the body. The researchers speculate that this might contribute to stillbirths in some instances.

The second study, also from New Zealand, placed 30 pregnant women in a sleep lab. They monitored their breathing and position throughout the night to see if there was a relationship between lying on their backs and measured breathing. While none of the women met the criteria for sleep apnea, they didn’t breathe in as deeply when they were lying on their backs.

Lastly, researchers in the UK interviewed over 1000 women about their sleep practices before pregnancy, during pregnancy and the night before their stillbirth (for those who had suffered one) or the interview (for women who had not suffered one). The women who had gone to sleep on their backs while pregnant were twice as likely to have had a stillbirth then women who had gone to sleep on their left side.

All of this was a follow up to earlier research which had proposed the same hypothesis, that sleeping on your back increased the risk.

Women need accurate health information

Delivering timely information to prevent stillbirth is important, and withholding information out of a fear you’ll frighten women is patronising at best and potentially dangerous at worst.

What’s more, witholding information does little in an era where most people can get online and are not always equipped to evaluate what information is useful and how to put it into context. Health care providers can do more to partner with librarians on delivering evidence-based information to their patients. This is certainly true with information about pregnancy, but also in many areas of health where the information that needs to be delivered is complex, and requires more time to be evaluated than is available to most doctors.

Women deserve better communication about their health and the health of their babies when pregnant. While counting kicks and sleeping on your left side aren’t a guarantee that you’ll have a safe and healthy pregnancy, they are easy, low cost ways to reduce the risk.