Yesterday we also attended our first parenting class, on breast feeding and newborn care. The highlight of my day was the race to the nearest bathroom by a bunch of waddling pregnant women for the last potty break. That's not to imply the class wasn't any good though. The second half on newborn care was very informative, the hands-on coaching time for swaddling and using a sling especially. The breast feeding segment I found to be just much too generalized without enough specifics.
Something mentioned in the class that I've been wanting to write about for some time now is all the controversy surrounding almost every topic of parenting. I shouldn't be surprised really, since at our core humans are like most every other animal in our capacity to go above-and-beyond when protecting our young is at stake. It's the really crazy stuff that is, well, driving me crazy. Yes, parents can have strong opinions about vaccinations and breastfeeding and baby carriers and sleep regimens and... ok, just about everything. But too often lines are crossed, and the personal opinions are suddenly public and over-reaching. I recently mentioned not having any run-ins with "breast-feeding nazis, pregnancy worshippers, parenting saints, or tummy-rubbing personal-space invaders." Not personally anyway. So before I do have an encounter that leaves me a fire-breathing maniac of righteous indignation, I'd like to calmly introduce the topic of "Parents Behaving Badly" (P.B.B), something I'd like to talk about on a semi-regular basis here.
Yes, I am the first person to see the hypocrisy of pointing out parents judging other parents and then passing my own judgement on the judgers. In my defense, I hope to remain calm and rational, to merely point out the over-the-top antics of others and plead for a little sensitivity and thoughtfulness to be remembered. Also, I don't want to get up on a soap-box and declare for one side or the other. There are plenty of topics that I am insanely passionate about, but when it comes to talking about other "Parents Behaving Badly", I'd just like to point out the scary behavior in hopes people can remember to take a breath before speaking angrily against each other.
I'll start with an easy one: an online posting about the safety of Sudafed during pregnancy, and the responses it generated. Can Sudafed really be controversial? Apparently the answer is yes, oh boy it can!
Worried about taking Sudafed during pregnancy.
I have had troubles with my sinuses and my doctor told me it was safe to take sudafed. I am six weeks and went to a different dr the other day and he told me NOT to take sudafed. So I looked up online and come to find out sudafed is harmful to the fetus. I am so scared! I only took one at night for about a week. Please any light on this would be helpful. I am just worried my baby will not develop right.
Posted: 11/27/2007 by BetsyG
That sounds simple enough - if you do a search online, you'd be amazed (or not) at just how often doctor's advice leaves people scratching their heads and turning to others for re-interpretation. But very rarely does the internet allow you to merely get your answer and move on. If you're lucky, you'll get some good advice. If you're not-so-lucky, you'll get judgements, questions to your intelligence, and flame-wars. Here are some examples of P.B.B.
I'm sorry if I sound flippant, but please consider it this way: In most states, Sudafed and related products are no longer available OTC, you must provide your driver's license and have your purchase recorded. The reason for this? Pseudoephedrine is the main ingredient in street-made methamphetamine. Personally, I would not give my unborn child meth. I stick to my doctor's advice and either wait out the malady or take Benadryl/Tylenol. I'm giving birth in a few months; if I can't suffer through a migraine or a cold, I'm in serious trouble when it comes to labor and delivery.
posted 12/18/2009 by Mellcamp
This one definitely started some commenter-to-commenter conversation! This person just likened a pregnant woman taking Sudafed to the act of giving an unborn child methamphetamine. How is that helpful exactly? Is it even true? No, the fact that Sudafed can be used in the making of meth does not automatically make it meth. To top it all off, Mellcamp then belittled the suffering of another mother. Was that really necessary? It is never kind to judge another person's suffering against your own or someone else's in order to judge its worthiness. Suffering is suffering. Each person is unique, with their own tolerance levels, their own complications and other problems in their life to compound matters. There is just nothing helpful about telling someone with a migraine that "at least you don't have cancer", and there's nothing helpful in telling a pregnant women with sinus pain that she should suck it up because birthing is going to be worse. The remark is callous, the topics unrelated, and the pain events months apart. I certainly wouldn't want a dentist to tell me that he couldn't get to my emergency root canal for a week and that he wouldn't recommend any pain relievers because my pain today would be nothing compared to what it will be after the procedure - I'm still in pain right now!
Don't take Sudafed while pregnant. My daughters clinic told her it was OK to take when she got sick. She took it 4 days before her baby was born. Her daughter was born perfectly healthly. But in the state of Alabama if a baby has amethamine in there blood from from the mother it is automatically deemed the mother has a drug problem. When her daughter was four weeks old the local services took the baby away from her for 6 mos. She has had to pay fines and takes random drug screens. She has to attend recovery classes. She has had to pay a high price for this over the counter medication. She has no drug history and is passing all tests. It is taking a year and half to convince the court she does not have a drug problem. Don't even think about taking this one.
posted 02/03/2012 by a BabyCenter Member
This one left me scratching my head, wondering about the veracity of a single word. Sudafed got someones baby taken away by CPS? Really? This is a frustrating one, because it just sounds so ridiculously out of the realm of possibilities to me, but honestly, without any proof to the contrary, what can I say? This woman is recounting a personally horrifying experience that doesn't answer the original question, but is to topic, so... I guess I could ask for proof? Really, the reasonable thing here is to quietly move on - either the story is true, or it's not, and that's that. But nope, someone thought it was important to respond, and not kindly. Oh boy.
To the previous poster, there is no such thing as methamphetamine or amphetamine in Sudafed. If your daughter's doctor did a blood screen at birth, they had reason to. Active ingredient in sudafed is pseudoephedrine HCI, inactive is candelilla wax, hypromellose, magnesium stearate, microcrystalline cellulose, polyethylene glycol, povidone, and titanium dioxide. Printed with edible blue ink. Stop scaring other mom's with your daughter's stupidity in doing drugs while pregnant.
posted 02/13/2012 by dawnmarc
I applaud the fact-finding, I really do. But did it go far enough? Nope. Amphetamine is not Sudafed, Sudafed is not amphetamine, true. But we're talking about drug testing, and if you look that up online, you will find people claiming that they have had false-positives for amphetamines from taking Sudafed. How true are those stories? I can't say, I'm not a doctor, a scientist, or a tech in a drug-testing lab. I'm guessing that dawnmarc isn't one of those professionals either, otherwise they should have stated so in order to settle the matter. But the worst part is the comment about the previous poster's daughter. It wasn't enough to go out and list the ingredients on the back of a box as scientific proof of how blood testing should work, but then a moral conclusion had to be drawn and then stated publicly in order to shame this woman. The use of the word "stupidity" should have been a red flag that maybe the statement should have been thought over before shared publicly, but what is a small insult like that when your point is in declaring this woman's daughter a liar and a drug user? Please, if you can't confirm another person's story, try to refrain from publicly shouting "liar". And while you're at it, you're going from unhelpful to mean when you add on the moral judgement of jumping to the conclusion of actual drug usage. I sincerely hope that dawnmarc never finds her/himself accidentally on the wrong side of the law and then faced with cries of shaming instead of hands of support.
To "P.B.B." online and in public: please, take a step back, take a breath, and think about what you're saying before you say it out loud. When you're online, it's so much easier to speak your first thoughts because you're not looking into the face of the person you're talking to. But it's also so much easier to take a moment and really think about the ramifications of what you're about to post before you actually send it out for the entire world to see.