This amazing journey started with the decision to become parents, I don’t know about other people but I was personally never ready to be a mother. It was that time in our life when we both agreed it was time to start family and I was excited and scared at the same time.
When you are pregnant for the very first time, people who have given birth before you tend to put it upon themselves to share their personal experiences which most times are not only bad but scary for someone is doing it for the very first time.
You know when you are pregnant for the very first time, people who have given birth before you tend to put it upon themselves to share their personal experiences which most times are not only bad but scary for someone is doing it for the very first time.
They ask curiously“Are you giving birth naturally or by caesarian” before you even answer they have already started narrating their painful labor experiences. One wonders if their intention is to scare or encourage you because one way or another you have to give birth at some point.
And as I learnt later they forget that each person has their own experience, there are those who have completely painless short labor processes and others get long painful ones, basically no one should ever lie to anyone that this labor thing is cut in stone.
I thank God I successfully went through my labor and delivered a healthy baby girl and as I was struggling to keep up with the post maternal stress, more unsolicited advise came my way from almost every visitor who came see us.
It actually got so disturbing having to deal with different contradicting advise from different people who thought were experts at the journey I was starting.
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The advise ranged from how many times the baby was to be bathed a day, to what type and color of clothing to dress the baby in, yellow or no yellow (some people out there actually believe yellow clothing causes jaundice which most people choose to call yellow fever among newborns)
Infant jaundice according to mayoclinc.org is a yellow discoloration in a newborn baby’s skin and eyes. Infant jaundice occurs because the baby’s blood contains an excess of bilirubin a yellow-colored pigment of red blood cells.
Infant jaundice usually occurs because a baby’s liver isn’t mature enough to get rid of bilirubin in the bloodstream.
In some cases, an underlying disease may cause jaundice.
Treatment of infant jaundice often isn’t necessary, and most cases that need treatment respond well to noninvasive therapy. Although complications are rare, a high bilirubin level associated with severe infant jaundice or inadequately treated jaundice may cause brain damage.
I had done my research on that but most people couldn’t stop telling me to keep clotheswith any yellow coloringaway from the babyas according to themthey would cause Jaundice.
I consulted medical personnel, and discovered the only reason why one is not encouraged to dress the baby in yellow clothing was because it became hard to detect the yellowness of the baby when dressed or covered in yellow clothes, which most Ugandans interpreted as the cause of the disease.
Moving ahead of this I had another baby years later who actually turned out to have that condition and you can imagine how I had to explain to people time and again how yellow clothes don’t cause Jaundice and how Jaundice isn’t yellow fever and any facts related to that.
Back to the most hectic debate was to whether cover the baby in tones and tones of blankets or not. Most traditional Ugandans believe,with disregard to our weather, anewborn baby should to be heavily covered in blankets at all times. Surely this is one of those things I just used common sense to solve, its obvious that if I would cover the baby during a very hot weather they would get a skin rash, be so uncomfortable and when it would be cold the baby would feel cold too.
My decision regarding warm clothing didn’t go so well with some people to the point that they swore my baby’s health was going to be in danger. In order not to come off as rude Idecided to listen but in the end make decisions based on the Doctor’s advise, logic and research from books/Internet.
To all aspiring mothers be ware of these unsolicited advisers, you can choose to listen but sieve the content, stop them midway if you feel their vibe is scaring the crap out of you, consult a medical personnel and read to arm yourself well for this amazing journey. As a matter of factit goes on to all stages of parenthood but always watch outfor them.
The most violent element in society is ignorance. ~Emma Goldman
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