Women have so much misinformation about pregnancy, breastfeeding, and bodily changes that it still remains a wonder how any woman copes with this stage in her life. Even those women who decide to pick up every book possible on the subject are shocked to learn things that they were told are all wrong. The following highlights just a few of the fallacies and their truths about these important "female only" subjects.
Nine Months vs. Forty Weeks
From conception to birth, a full-term baby requires forty weeks. It may be thirty-eight or thirty-nine weeks, or somewhere in between right at the end. No matter how it shakes out, none of those numbers comes out to nine months. So, which is it?
Here is the issue; back before there was a sure-fire way to know that you were pregnant, you only saw your doctor after your first missed period. That is one month right there, and then you waited another nine months to give birth. The whole nine months thing is an old wives' tale, since they assumed you were pregnant starting with the first week before you missed your period. Now, OBGYNs know better; it takes forty weeks, or TEN MONTHS, from conception to delivery, period.
If You Do Not Breastfeed, Your Breasts Will Not Sag
Um, no, that is an absolute fallacy. Breastfeeding does not make your breasts sag. Pregnancy does. As your body prepares to bring a new life into the world, your body goes through a lot of changes.
That really firm breast tissue you have that gives your breasts lift and the right amount of anti-gravity bounce is replaced by expanding mammary glands and less fat. Even if you do not breastfeed, your breast tissue changes during pregnancy, your breasts swell and then shrink, and finally, gravity takes over, pulling your breasts downward. If you are pregnant, your breasts will never be the same again.
Stretchmarks Are Inevitable
The younger you are, the more collagen and hydration you have in your skin. The older you are, the less you have. Collagen is essential for skin to stretch. Lack of collagen means your skin does not stretch as well, and that is where your stretch marks come in. Worse still, if you have stretch marks from your teen years, this is actually scar tissue, which has no collagen at all.
During pregnancy, you will get stretch marks everywhere. They are inevitable, and the only way you can get fewer stretchmarks is to have children in your twenties and start with no stretchmarks whatsoever. Since only a very small percentage of women ever go through pregnancy with no stretch marks, you are in the same boat with the rest of the pregnant and skin-striped ladies.
