The CDC recently came out with,
–Prevalence and Trends in Prepregnancy Normal Weight
In the last ~five years, we’ve continued to increase the proportion of women who begin pregnancy at an unhealthy weight. 55% now start their pregnancy in a disadvantaged position.
-> The point of this post is not to pick on women. Men are no help in this situation, but the child doesn’t come out of them.
I have a pregnancy series where I’ve detailed many issues with being heavier. I want to hit on some other points.
First, since writing that series this has only gotten worse. You can see it statistically and, if you’re around that crowd, through life experience. Since I’ve now had a child and been around a lot of pregnant women -they tend to congregate through classes and such- I’ve been alarmed at not only how heavy many are (and their husbands), but how many women (and men) in their 30s now on blood pressure medication.
I’m eight years into full-time personal training. Personal training lends itself to an older clientele. Those in their 20s don’t have any money. People in their early 30s have some, but not much disposable income. Younger people aren’t as health conscious to begin with.
-> Which is a concern. How many youngins have high blood pressure but don’t know it because they don’t go to a doctor?
Even so, I’ve trained quite a few younger people. I’ve had some mention they were having trouble, but now I’m more and more hearing people on medication. I wasn’t even sure a person could get to that point in only 30 years. Like arthritis. You just don’t see it until certain ages.
Rates do appear to have gone up. In the early 2000s, we were around 6% of 20-34 year olds having high blood pressure. Now we’re at 9. In about 10 years we went from almost 1 out of 20, to almost 1 out of 10.
I’m 31. I’m well aware everybody already hates my generation. We’re unnecessarily shit on. I’m also big on empathy. Just yelling at someone to change a habit is rarely productive. But we need to berate the point here- we’re talking largely self-imposed health issues in young people. No kids. Endless free time. Minimal joint problems where there isn’t any chronic pain preventing activity. To have chronic health issues is fucking insane. This is pure sloth. “Waa, I wanna watch Netflix for the 30th hour this week.”
-> I concede corporate America does not help, at all. If it’s less metabolically costly, it’s probably a business opportunity, unfortunately. Rather than carry your luggage you can wheel it, but soon you won’t even have to do that! (Amazon is the king of this.)
Second, once you’re around a pregnant woman, you learn about all kinds of problems you never knew about. This is my big worry. Many think nothing of higher blood pressure, or being heavier, until something happens. You get rushed to the ER? Well, you always knew being heavier wasn’t great, but suddenly you know it’s not great.
There is nothing like having a child and being rushed to the NICU. A level of fear takes over which you did not know existed within you. No matter the situation, you start rushing through your head like “Oh my god, what did we do? Was there something we missed? Did we do something wrong? Could we have done something better?” Then you get in that NICU and realize you are useless. Life is out of your hands. Your first moment as a parent is complete futility.
I cannot emphasize to potential new parents enough, you do not want to have your kid go to the NICU and realize “That whole pregnancy weight / blood pressure issue is something we did have control over.”
Furthermore, when it comes to having a child survive, if you are in the United States, out of developed countries, you are in the worst country.
Not just for the baby; for the mother too. Maternal mortality, America? Again. The. Worst. Here’s a congratulations-you’re-pregnant! read for you:
–The Last Person You’d Expect to Die in Childbirth
As that article details, preeclampsia -high blood pressure during latter pregnancy- often leads to premature delivery, which equals NICU. The more overweight you are? Already have high blood pressure before getting pregnant? The greater odds you get preeclampsia.
And if you do make it out of the birthing process? Hey, survival wise, you’re still in the worst country for your child. America is exceptional, but not always in the ways we want. 75% worse than the average:
For a country with so much money, our childcare numbers are embarrassing. We have a lot of work to do. Compounding the issue is it’s something I don’t think many are aware of, until a major life event happens. I sure didn’t know any of these numbers until starting the pregnancy process. Many just assume, “Hey, ‘Murica, I’m sure the birth will work out smoothly.” Not realizing if you wanted to be in the most dangerous (non third world) place, you’d pick the United States. Off wifey goes, “I’m eating for two.” (While hubby has “sympathy hunger.”) Meanwhile, have high blood pressure when you start pregnancy? You’re automatically considered high risk.
-> Increasing the odds you go on bed rest / miss work, meaning more financial stress, with stress obviously not being good for anybody.
As a future pregnant woman / future significant other of a pregnant woman, one of the easiest ways you can tilt these alarming numbers in your favor is get your health and fitness under control. (That will lessen the odds your kid is obese too!) It’s hard to change how your hospital is doing c-sections, whether you’re in an area with great NICU care, but you can lessen the odds you even need these interventions. These issues are always multi-causal, however, it’s not a coincidence America has terrible childcare numbers and we’re also the most obese.
asgag
April 2, 2018
Great post as always. Terrifying article on HELLP.
Besides the weight issue, there are many other health and fitness aspects that play a role in the birth process, as per Katy Bowman: “although vaginal delivery is a completely natural process, women no longer have naturally aligned equipment. Your heeled shoes, hours spent in chairs, habits of sucking in your gut, chronic stress and tension, high chest breathing, and tucked pelvis make both Head to Cervix and Uterine forces lower than they could be and your resistive forces (hip and PF tension) higher than they should be”.
b-reddy
April 3, 2018
Something I certainly didn’t realize until seeing labor in action first hand was how physical of a process it is. I think many of us grasp the pushing phase is intense, but all the hours leading up to it play an enormous role. Looking at it through my personal trainer lens made me appreciate just how much being in-shape can help…and how much being out of shape can make it unbearable.
Morgana
April 2, 2018
Great points.
Unfortunately, you’re talking to/about a wall. These are the same conversations happening around the country about all young people who have missed opportunities. There are simply too many young people who don’t even recognize an opportunity when it’s placed directly in front of them. It is indeed baffling
I struggle to figure this out as a middle-aged mother of four grown children, all but one who are normal, healthy, and productive. My fourth is profoundly disabled, so falls outside of these conversations in every way. My other three all struggled, but eventually caught the wave sometime before the point where I would’ve wondered what went (what I did) so spectacularly wrong. It seems mine have succeeded in spite of me….
It occurs to me that something happened – – to people, the people who are now parenting these ignorant kids – – that has caused young people a complete intellectual disconnect with their own potential. It’s about personal responsibility, but also something much more nebulous that we can’t seem to put our finger on. I think it’s simply that they JUST DON’T SEE their own possibilities, and we cannot change if we cannot conceive of potential. Combined with corporate marketing strategies and economic despair, it’s become the perfect storm of complacence and personal malaise.
And your generation, as with the one or two immediately before you, does indeed garner fear and disgust, but most rational people realize it was the parents raising you that failed, and that you are merely playing out the hand you were dealt.
Well, not YOU Brian. But you know what I mean. Great conversation. This does indeed need to be talked about.
b-reddy
April 3, 2018
I enjoyed this comment. Thanks Morgana.
I’ve recently been making my way through The Self-Driven Child. It’s given me some perspective on where so many of the issues with young people have potentially come from. (Always hard to pinpoint one cause.) As you hit on, parenting being an enormous element, but also the changes in our environment the last 30 years or so. For example, the book discusses the relationship between college admissions and or technology, and ties that to the dramatic increases in anxiety going on with adolescents.
Perhaps something you’d enjoy. I’ve been surprised how much I’ve liked it.
Morgana
April 3, 2018
Certainly. I will read it, and will pass it on to my daughter who is now struggling to raise a very bright and precocious 7.5 year-old with far less tech than other parents, most of who seem to depend on it for everything, not the least of which is babysitting.
Again – great topic. Thanks.
b-reddy
April 6, 2018
The babysitting by iPad kills me. Something I constantly remind myself is “don’t outsource your parenting.”
kierfinnegan
April 3, 2018
Those numbers are crazy! I wonder if they are adjusted for income anywhere. I believe America and the UK (which also doesn’t perform that well) have the highest levels of income inequality in the developed world. Poverty is surely a factor, for many reasons.
The UK seems to be catching up with America in numbers of people relying on food banks and vouchers. Clearly they’re not going to be getting top quality food. For the amount that we spend on stocking the house with veg and protein for 2 people per day, even though we’ve got it down to a fine fiscal art, we could probably still feed a family of 10 at the local fried chicken shop. It’s scary how cheap some places are near us. I used to work in a school in a seriously deprived area. I would come in and see the kids eating fried chicken, or burgers and fries for breakfast, that they will have bought for less than £1. And we have a government that has just taken free school meals off millions of children in poverty so their parents will have to find one or two extra meals a day.
Then there’s education, stress and addiction, depression and a lack of will to leave the house etc. It feels like it’s self perpetuating.
It’s obviously a bit too deep to go into here and this isn’t a criticism of the article! I’m just basically thinking out loud haha.
b-reddy
April 6, 2018
An enormous factor in America is surely how medicaid -our health insurance for low income people- covers nearly half of all newborn deliveries. Basically, in America, half of all deliveries involve ties with poverty, and crappy, if not zero, health insurance. (You may get coverage while pregnant, but you either had bad or no insurance before, and you’ll have bad or no insurance again 60 days after delivery.)
Our approach to health insurance and our obesity are going to correlate extremely well with the mortality numbers.
We’re going through a similar debate with school lunches. For some insane number of kids, that’s their main nutrition.
I focused on obesity for the post because an individual has much more control of that than these other factors, but of course it’s not the only factor.
And for rich people, in particular hospitals, I wouldn’t be surprised if the mortality numbers are as good as anywhere. America is full of these contradictions. Many assume private schools are better than public. And that other countries have better public schooling than us, per our like 30th math ranking.
However, if you look at the top performing kids in public schools, they tend to do as well as anywhere. You see this dynamic play out over and over again here. With a lot of statistics, our top 10% are hard to beat, while our average is pretty easy to beat.
Warren Buffett has talked about this at length. If you’re wired for the American system, you will do outrageously well. If you’re not, you get crushed. He, and I, would argue, we don’t need to let certain groups get crushed as much as they have been. But nobody wants to see me write a bunch about politics :).