Saturday, February 18, 2006

Old wives' tales

Just yesterday mom started nagging at me for drinking cold drinks; eating too much fruits. She believes that having too much of "cooling food" will only induce a miscarriage. And mind you, this is not the time to hear such inauspicious words.
Many of us who go through pregnancy will hear alot of old wives' tales right from the start till 10 months later, and bombarded with many restrictions. I remember having a discussion with a girlfriend years back on tales and confinement period. She doesn't believe in confinement period and has not practiced any of it with all her pregnancies. I practiced it with my mom doing the confinement period for me. And not forgetting I did mention that I really did wonder why Chinese came up with so many restrictions or why they say certain foods are fit/not fit for consumption when women in our planet go through pregnancies. I mean, caucasian ladies (white); negroids (black), mongolians (yellow) - don't we all have the same body? Anyway, I did ask mom about this and she told me actually it started as the way of life in laidback China. I don't know if she spun any stories to me but they definitely sounded logical, eg. why women don't bathe? Her story was that people have to walk a long distance just to get pails of water. Logical! And talking about China, I have been talking to this lady who's from Shanghai (actually Wuxi which I just found out) in the clinic. I asked her about their confinement restrictions and how strict are they in China, her answers surprised me when she told me "we don't practice anything." Infact I surprised her when I told her that most Chinese here would practice. Her answer was " In this modern metropolis city?" So instead of me trying to find out more things they practice, I was sharing with her what I can on the practices. Darn! I hope I don't sound like an ah-soh. Come on! At first I thought she didn't believe or practice all these because she's from Shanghai. But the Wee Chee told me they're from Wuxi - and that place sounds ulu to me.
If 10 months down the road is not bad enough, what about the current 9 months of pregnancy? There are tales of :nailing something on the wall; painting; cutting & sewing on the bed. Speaking of which, I didn't know the tale of cutting & sewing on the bed - which apparently I did (sewed clothes for my 2 teddy bears). My girlfriend did that too and she checked from her gynae "okay no cleft lip". My girl is perfectly normal. I heard of someone's child who had a patch of black on her baby's face just because she painted the baby's bedroom. Coincident? I don't know. During my first pregnancy, my house was going through renovations. However, my designer did ask them to stop work whenever I pop by the place to check out the progress.
Having written so much, now it's my personal point of view. I choose to believe and practice especially for the confinement period. Because I do not want to suffer in the future; all I need to do is to endure the one month (but we changed some eg. shower and wash hair; aircon)If I don't practice, and what if it's true... I get pains all over my body and no one can help me to ease the pain.

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