A few weeks ago on the bus home, while satisfying yet another craving for salt and vinegar crisps, Fi googled “eating crisps during pregnancy” and was horrified to find a European study suggesting that consuming large amounts of crisps and chips during pregnancy could harm a baby as much as smoking. Since then, and having conducted no further research or considered any of the variables in this stand-alone study involving 186 women from Bradford, she has been petrified of the fried potato. Tuck into a bag of crisps around her and she’ll probably move room.
It seemed only fair to pass the paranoia onto Hannah, who duly shunned crisps herself, and now misses them so much she’s dreamed about eating them on two separate occasions and woken up really happy.
There are lots of things to be anxious about during pregnancy and another largely unsubstantiated medical report that Fi read about online said that stress is deeply detrimental to the baby (as bad as smoking? As bad as crisps?) It’s stressful trying not to stress. Fi’s been really going for it with candles and spotify relaxation playlists - rainforest soundscapes where it sounds like someone’s having a shower in your sitting room. But then Hannah warned her that she’d read that certain candle scents can induce labour, and the lists differ according to which American blog you look at, so it’s probably best just to stay away. Like with herbal teas. What? Fi’s been drinking herbal teas!! It’s a minefield.
In an attempt to keep her stress levels down and feel at one with all the mothers of the world (or at least the ones who live near her tube stop), Hannah braved a local pregnancy yoga class last week. The mats were laid out in a circle, for that relaxing ‘ritual sacrifice’ vibe, and as the pregnant ladies assembled, Hannah became increasingly overwhelmed...it just didn’t seem natural to have twenty groaning expectant mothers - that’s forty people if you include the offspring inside them - concentrated in such a confined space. It felt like the roof was going to lift off or something. (She googled that on the way home to see if it was possible, but there have been no reported cases thus far).
So all in all, thank God for the internet! Imagine trying to negotiate pregnancy without it.