You are FOREVER pregnant

[MrsSpringsteen]

Besides, it is unfair to obligate women to carry all the responsability of a "future" baby's health, when you need two to make one.

I agree, and the article I posted talks about the links between mens' behavior and birth defects.

It all seems a bit Stepfordish to me

 

[lady luck]

Do all men have to act like pre-fathers, like mature and all that?

 

[JanuaryStar]

I agree... Why should we only have to look out and prepare for all things that may or may not come?

Let the men have their responsibilities as well, I say.

 

[randhail]

I get a kick out of women thinking this is another example of men trying to control thier lives when the program is co-sponsered by the March of Dimes, whose president is a woman, and a co-author of the report is also a woman.

Studies have documented the correlation between folic acid instake and birth defects like spina bifida, so to a woman who is even remotely considered having kids why not eat some extra veggies or bread? If you don't at all want to have kids, then do whatever you want. Hell, even if you want to have kids do whatever you want. Afterall, these are also recommendations, not binding law. Choose to follow them or not follow them - just like you can choose to wear a seatbelt or not wear a seatbelt, but be willing to accept the consequences whatever the outcome is.

 

[Muggsy]

What would happen, if a woman who followed all those guidelines, keeping a healthy diet, avoiding all the chemical stuff gives birth to a child with some physical or mental problem?... there are places where women with children with defects are stigmatized, their husbands can leave them and "try" again with another woman, if a baby has some problem is because "she must did something wrong" . Even if this that program is not running by men, it enforces the idea of many of them, who think that they won't have anything to do in the process.

 

[anitram]

The problem is this puts the onus on women when the onus should be placed on the government to provide proper pre-natal health care for FREE (what a concept in the US) to every woman, and particularly to minorities who skew the statistics of birth defects and deaths in the first place.

 

[Irvine511]

The problem is this puts the onus on women when the onus should be placed on the government to provide proper pre-natal health care for FREE (what a concept in the US) to every woman, and particularly to minorities who skew the statistics of birth defects and deaths in the first place.

culture of life, indeed.

 

[Angela Harlem]

What is folic acid found in naturally, anyway? What foods? I don't go for taking vitamins suppliments in pills beyond normal vitamins--the "organic" food industry is as full of snake-oil salemen these days as anything else. So many of my friends chug down their Fish Oil pills and God knows what else. Rule #1: if it's a pill, DON'T take it if you can ingest it naturally. Herbal suppleimets can be dangerous too. Better to buy it in the herbal section of the baking dept at the grocery store.

But yes, this is pooky. Just Big Pharma's way of getting women to spend more money on expensive vitamin suppliments (expensive if you're on a strict budget!)

Folic acid found naturally in foods is not thought to be enough to really help prevent neural tube defects. You're best taking a tablet, and a 500mg dose one at that.

 

[Angela Harlem]

What is so astoundingly obnoxious about this is that it completely ignores the problems we have in this country as far as health care and education are concerned. 1. Our lack of good, logical, rational sex ed is embarassing. 2. Our lack of a universal health care system--where those in the lowest tax brackets get good, free, easily accessible care--is criminal in a country as rich as ours. and 3. I am NOT a walking uterus!

So, tell every female to take folic acid...and if she doesn't (for a zillion different reasons) and then gets pregnant (b/c she got the abstinence-only, nope-not-gonna-tell-ya-how-to-use-a-condom sex ed), and then doesn't see an OB-Gyn until, oh, month 8 because of a zillion other reasons...and then has a baby with defects...can the powers that be then blame this on HER?

The other problem is that the health of any possible future fetus I may or may not carry becomes more important than ME and my health NOW! Why can't we be encouraged to be healthy for ourselves instead of as future mothers? Seriously, it makes us look like brood mares in lock-step with the other young mothers of the fatherland! (I'm having paranoid Nazi imaginings).

Think the Handmaid's Tale is fiction? Think again.

I have to stop this rant...but I'm still pissed off

If I may play devil's advocate for a moment, isn't this article precisely a form of sex education? Even in this thread it seems a large number of people are thinking folate in natural products is enough. It isn't. a combined iron and folic acid supplement is your best bet in ensuring folate requirements are met. I agree with you all on how this article is presented; it's fair criticism. However, it is aiming to educate on what measures women can take to prepare for a pregnancy. How many women are aware to begin taking supplements for at least 3 months prior to conception?

 

[melon]

The B complex vitamins are all water soluble, so your body will only absorb what it needs at the moment and excrete the rest.

With that, I do take a B complex vitamin, but at a realistic dose (100% RDA a dose). Anything substantially larger than that would be a waste.

Melon

 

[Angela Harlem]

for a healthy male, yes.

 

[anitram]

No, for anyone.

Your body can only absorb so much of any water soluble compound at a time.

It is similar for proteins - you can eat all the protein bars you want but you will be excreting almost all of it in urine past a certain point.

 

[Angela Harlem]

No, I am not talking about that. Many ovulating women lack iron. Pregnant women lack even more. A typical diet will fall short many times in certain areas during these changes. A lot of women end up deficient.

 

[anitram]

If you want to effectively combat severe cases of menstrual anemia, then you need to have the birth control pill readily available for the women affected who would best be treated in this manner. Not to have your health care coverage refuse to pay for it while paying for Viagra, not to have lunatic pharmacists refusing to issue it out and not to have the government paying attention to fringe groups who insist that contraception = abortion.

The problem with combating women's health issues is that because they are so intimately tied in with reproduction, you have everybody with an opinion and half of those opinion have nothing to do with the public good.

 

[Kieran McConville]

actually whether it's sexist or not, it's still creepy. how dare they tell people how to live their lives. if you ARE a woman, you may well be 'pre pregnant' for your entire youth/early middle age... as obviously not every woman has a child or ever intends to.

Sit down

Stand up

Sit down

stand up

 

[Harry Vest]

Whoa!!!
People have been having happy healthy babies for thousands of years. Geez whiz.

 

[verte76]

This doesn't bother me. I think they're trying to prevent problems in pregnancy and birth defects. True, men should be told to avoid steroids, but they do that too, don't they?