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In New York, pregnancy is a form of tyranny

07 April 2009

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Alexandra Starr discovers that in Manhattan expecting a baby is all about you and your performance, rather than the child: doctors and websites give the mother-to-be no quarter

As a woman who harbours no desire to run three miles on the verge of giving birth, I became increasingly irritated that I had landed in a city with such a strict gestation ethos. I carped about this with vigour one Sunday morning as my husband wolfed down a breakfast I could no longer share with him: a frothy coffee accompanied by a fat brown bagel topped with smoked salmon.

Seeing my distress, my husband jumped up from the table and declared I would have a UK pregnancy right here in Manhattan. He fired up his laptop and found the Food Standards Agency website, highlighting its more lax strictures. As the Agency puts it, though ‘some countries advise not to eat cold meats and smoked fish’ (ahem), those products are basically fine, because the risk of listeria is very low.

‘There,’ my husband said, plunking the computer and a slice of bagel adorned with glistening fish down in front of me. ‘Bookmark this page, and for God’s sake stay off UrbanBaby.’ As I scanned the do’s and don’ts, I could see the alternative reality before me. I could have coffee in the morning, and the occasional glass of wine (the NHS advises against drinking, but does allow this escape hatch — if you do choose to drink, limit consumption to one or two units per week, it says). And in England, I learned, they do not weigh pregnant women at all.

Since then, I’ve become lenient. I occasionally skip the prenatal yoga class to which my doctor sent me, savour a one-shot latte at breakfast a few times a week, and at an office party consumed the slice of vanilla cake which neither I nor the baby needed. Still, I occasionally tease my husband about our decision to move back to New York, and hint that relocation could preserve my long-term sanity. For according to other parents, the prenatal stage is just the beginning.

When I confided to a friend that I’d found pregnancy in New York to be stressful, he laughed for a long while. ‘Oh Alex,’ he said. ‘Just wait until you’re trying to get them into preschool.’

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cityboozer

April 8th, 2009 3:07pm Report this comment

Actually the advice to avoid "deli meats" generally refers to cured meats like salami and prosciutto, which can carry toxoplasmosis.

David Short

April 8th, 2009 4:10pm Report this comment

More Polly Filla in the formerly serious Speccie!

Expecting Lady

April 8th, 2009 11:02pm Report this comment

Is this the sex and the city version of Manhattan pregnancy? As someone who is expecting and lives in nyc, I have to say I have not encountered any of this. Granted, I'm using more common sense than by-the-book guidelines. Like anywhere else, there are cultural bias' when it comes to pregnancy, and the US really tops them all with the no caffeine, alcohol, sushi, deli meat, etc. restrictions. It's not an NYC/Manhattan thing, it's nationwide.

Sally

April 8th, 2009 11:10pm Report this comment

And this is news to who? I live in NYC and YES it is TRUE! That is why we are called neurotic new yorkers.

eb

April 9th, 2009 1:13am Report this comment

Hah! Try working at Conde Nast while pregnant. Torture. A woman in the elevator told me, "geez, you're kind of big for seven months." So much for my brownie...

ladykatie

April 9th, 2009 5:16pm Report this comment

This is lovely, thank you! People are ridiculous.

Bree

April 9th, 2009 6:21pm Report this comment

Actually, the deli meat and soft cheese ban is because they can have harbor the bacteria that causes listeria, which can cause miscarriage. I don't understand why pregnant women aren't informed of what the exact risk of eating these things are. They are just added to a list with no explanation, so women don't have the opportunity to understand why they should be avoided.

Jen DC

April 9th, 2009 6:39pm Report this comment

You live in NYC. Tell anyone giving you the stink eye about your breakfast/lunch meats/coffee/wine that unless they want to wear said breakfast/lunch meat/coffee/wine that they should pay more attention to themselves and their plate/glass/bottle and less to you and your growing belly.

And change OBs. She sounds like a harridan, and one who's not empathetic either, which is going to be necessary in the delivery room. What is she going to say to you then? "Oh, you shouldn't be in enough pain to need the epidural."

David Short

April 10th, 2009 2:00am Report this comment

How can 'Pregnancy' be a 'Form of Tyranny'?

A pregnant woman in New York City perhaps feels hard done by, but she (and certainly not her state) is not the initiator of her supposed hardship.

Who writes the silly headlines in the Spectator these days?

Not Even Likely

April 13th, 2009 9:18pm Report this comment

Be thankful you don't live at a time when the latest conventional wisdom said that painkilling drugs during childbirth and delivery were harmful to the baby, and you were a selfish weakling if you wanted them, and childbirth wasn't "real" pain anyway, unless you were a neurotic, self-centered hypocondriac. There wouldn't have been any pain if you had jogged through your pregnancy, like you were supposed to! That baby is at university now, and I obviously still resent it. By the time her sister came along several years later, conventional wisdom grudgingly permitted pain relief at the time of the birth. The prohibitions against smoking and alcohol, though, get more and more absolute with each passing year, and look to be headed to the lawbooks.

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