Q: Good evening ma’am. Please Doctor, can taking of COLD WATER prevent someone from conceiving? Thanks. God will continue to strengthen you in all your endeavors.

A: There are so many stories and taboos surrounding pregnancy that we need to address, really. Some pregnant women are practically banned from drinking cold water during pregnancy for this and other unclear reasons. There’s no medical basis for any of these stories. If you have a cold and you’re staying off cold water and filling up on warm fluids, I get it!  However, if it’s for any of the ‘traditional reasons’ kindly ask for an explanation if you’re uncertain. Your doctor is always a great and useful resource.

So, in simple language, ‘no. drinking cold water cannot prevent conception.’ And it cannot cause a problem for your baby when you’re pregnant. Whenever I am pregnant, I not only drink cold water but actually take a lot of ice cubes because I can’t just seem to get cool enough! I’m constantly sweating and generally feeling hot!  And I can tell you for a fact that none of my children were born asthmatic or with pneumonia! Having said that, as with everything else, moderation is key!

What you may notice though when you drink cold water is that baby moves around. This is, theoretically because the uterus/womb is close to the digestive tract such that the cold water in the digestive tract stimulates the baby to move. Women who feel concerned about their baby’s movements are sometimes asked to do this and check for baby’s movement.

Here are a couple of other pregnancy myths and our take on them:

Advice 1

You must always have a safety pin on your person; otherwise evil people may steal the baby from your tummy.

Verdict: Fiction

I’m not sure how else to qualify this, except by saying it is beyond weird!

Advice 2

Do not let people cross your leg when you’re sitting down. If they do, your baby will look like them.

Verdict: Fiction

Seriously guys!  This has no basis in reality and even in mythology. If you don’t like people crossing over your legs, that’s fine…but don’t get it twisted. It has nothing to do with how the baby looks.

Advice 3

Do not spend too much time or shout at people you don’t like or your baby will look like them.

Verdict: Fiction

Anything that gets you to stop screaming is a great idea. But let’s do it for the right reasons. Your baby’s looks are determined by genes and not your likes or dislikes 

Advice 4

If you scream during labour for your first child, you will scream throughout all your other labours.

Verdict: Fiction

Honestly, if you’d like to give your lungs a work-out during labour, be my guest. Go for it. I really don’t see any problem in it…certainly no documented medical one. In my case, to make up for the two times I tried to keep it all in, as I’d mentioned, I screamed the whole neighbourhood down when I was having my last baby!

But then again, you really don’t need to scream. You can put to bed in a center where you can receive epidural anaesthesia so that the whole process is easypeasy, lemon squeezy  

In Africa, we like to think that if we don’t have our babies the long, painful way, it makes us less of women. But that is not true. The woman who had her baby with anaesthesia and the woman who didn’t both have babies to show for their efforts and I assure you that in both cases, the maternal instincts are not affected.

Advice 5

‘If the doctors tell you that the best option for you is having your baby through Caesarian section, reject it. All the women in our families have had their babies ‘normally’; you can’t be an exception to that rule.’

Verdict: Fiction

Every woman’s story is different and so is their medical history. The history of your mum is not necessarily yours and so, judging what will happen to you at labour and delivery but what happened to your family before you, may be putting you in danger. In some instances, there may not even be a problem with the woman’s ability to deliver the baby, but because the labour is prolonged with the baby in distress, the doctor takes a decision to section the lady. Going against this advice (which is an option open to the woman as the doctor will not force his medical opinions on her) may endanger both mother and baby. So, please be guided.

 Advice 6

If you eat a lot of snails, your baby will spit a lot when born!

Verdict: Fiction

The fact that the snail is slimy has nothing to do with whether baby drools or not. Remember also that if your baby starts drooling when he’s teething, it has nothing to do the snails you ate when pregnant but everything to do with the process he’s going through…bringing forth teeth!

Advice 7

A breast feeding mother cannot get pregnant.

Verdict: Fiction

This actually used to be used as a birth control method called the Lactational Amenorrhea Method (LAM), because the hormones involved in lactation provide some protection against pregnancy-related hormones. However, we have seen again and again, women get pregnant while breastfeeding to know that this is not a reliable method of birth control! 

Advice 8

A pregnant mother must not breastfeed.

Verdict: Fiction

Much as it would have been a great idea to be completely done with one baby before starting on another one, the breastfeeding does not affect the baby in the womb. So, do not deprive your born baby of his/her 6 months of exclusive breastfeeding 

Advice 9

Pregnant women should not sleep on their backs as this may damage your baby’s eyes

Verdict: Fact and fiction

In the first trimester, if you’re used to sleeping on your back, you can continue. However, as you get into your second trimester, it is fact that pregnant women should not sleep on their backs especially close to term. However, the reason is not because of damage to baby’s eyes. It’s because the woman may feel dizzy as the growing uterus puts pressure on the vein that returns blood from the body making the woman feel dizzy on getting up and the baby may also not get enough nutrients from the placenta in that position Advice 10

If a pregnant woman drinks cold water, her baby may get pneumonia

Verdict: Fiction

Seriously?! It’s fictional enough the fact that we think that in real life, cold water drinking exposes us to pneumonia; but an unborn child….seriously?! This is as fictional as it gets. No basis in truth.

I hope this helps.

Have a good night y’all