Speaker 1: You're listening to Amma Mia podcast.
Speaker 2: Mom and Mayor acknowledges the traditional owners of land and
Speaker 2: waters that this podcast is recorded on.
Speaker 3: I am pregnanty.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Hello Bump. We're making pregnancy less overwhelming and
Speaker 2: more manageable. I'm Grace Rubray. I am pregnant for the
Speaker 2: first time, and I'm starting to forget words. In fact,
Speaker 2: I have to read this intro word for word from
Speaker 2: my laptop because I may forget it.
Speaker 3: I'm you out of Pittman, former olympian. I'm now mother
Speaker 3: of six and training to be an obstitrician and gynocologist.
Speaker 2: Each episode, we're holding your hand week by week through
Speaker 2: the mysterious, perplexing and sometimes but often exhausting miracle that
Speaker 2: is pregnancy.
Speaker 1: Week twenty seven this.
Speaker 2: Is a huge milestone. So how big is our baby?
Speaker 1: Massive? The size of a melon or terranium?
Speaker 2: Yes, it's certainly feeling melon like like inside.
Speaker 3: Absolutely a possum. There's an ossi animal possum. Animal possums
Speaker 3: are Aussie.
Speaker 2: Oh we've said sugar little.
Speaker 3: I think about the fact very thing, you know, brush
Speaker 3: tail possum possm Yeah, okay, good, yeah, all right, they're
Speaker 3: thirty seven centimeters, so another big jump and nine hundred
Speaker 3: gram so again approaching that one kilo mark.
Speaker 2: What is happening for them and what features have they
Speaker 2: developed or continued to develop this week?
Speaker 3: I think continue to develop is actually the perfect way
Speaker 3: to sort of phrase it, because baby is growing pretty
Speaker 3: fast and maturing, but most of the main things are there.
Speaker 3: It's now just getting bigger, stronger, and more effective, including
Speaker 3: their immune system which is now becoming more sophisticated. So
Speaker 3: it's around this time that you start getting the antibody
Speaker 3: transfer from your placenta to your baby. So things that
Speaker 3: you are being coming into contact with you will create
Speaker 3: antibodies and that'll actually have placential transfer it crosses over
Speaker 3: to your baby, which I think is very cool.
Speaker 2: It's like, so if you have a cold, yes, and
Speaker 2: then you've fought it off, they're going to have it.
Speaker 2: And I'm sure we'll talk about the RSV vaccine in
Speaker 2: later episodes because we're coming up to that. But they're
Speaker 2: starting to suck those things from you in a good way.
Speaker 1: In a good way, yep. And there's the three of them.
Speaker 1: I know, Grace Son.
Speaker 3: I'm going to say now because it actually gives our
Speaker 3: listeners some time to think about it when we do
Speaker 3: discuss it down the track. We have three vaccinations we
Speaker 3: talk about in pregnancy, which is influenza, can be any
Speaker 3: time in pregnancy, your DTP, which is your potassis. So
Speaker 3: hooping cough is rampant in Sydney at the moment. We
Speaker 3: ideally like mums to have it, but at least if
Speaker 3: you decide not to your family members, okay, so don't
Speaker 3: let them bring it in the house. It needs to
Speaker 3: be every pregnancy. So if grandma's saying I had it
Speaker 3: last year for your brother's baby, she needs it again.
Speaker 3: So it's important to know. And then, as you said,
Speaker 3: RSPE is a new one that we're discussing, and then
Speaker 3: COVID is optional, but it's you know, we have pretty
Speaker 3: set guidelines because we want those antibodies to cross to
Speaker 3: the baby to give them that protection in the first few.
Speaker 1: Months of life.
Speaker 2: I've actually just had my the hooping cough. Yes I
Speaker 2: did a week or so ago, and then my partner's
Speaker 2: going to get it as well. But how do you
Speaker 2: kind of start that conversation with relatives or friends. So
Speaker 2: it's not offensive to say you can't touch them. You
Speaker 2: can't hold them. Is there any advice that you give
Speaker 2: to your patients about how to start that conversation?
Speaker 3: Super tough because obviously there's so much conversation around vaccinations.
Speaker 3: People feel hard, you know, to vaccinate in pregnancy because
Speaker 3: they're worried about outcomes.
Speaker 1: So it's really tough to make someone you.
Speaker 3: Have a discussion around whether they are going to have
Speaker 3: a vaccination and they're not the pregnant one, particularly if
Speaker 3: it's your partner.
Speaker 1: Boy that would cause some issues.
Speaker 3: At home, I'm sure, but again it's everybody's an individual thing,
Speaker 3: and you have to do what's right for you and
Speaker 3: your baby in your own vaccination program, but also in
Speaker 3: those that visit you, and you are absolutely allowed to say,
Speaker 3: even if it's the person you love most, that I
Speaker 3: don't want to expose my baby to something that could
Speaker 3: harm them. So I think that is a responsible parental
Speaker 3: role rather than being awful and for.
Speaker 1: Many, many weeks away.
Speaker 3: But that conversation is hard because everyone wants to say
Speaker 3: hello to your baby. Everybody comes in and it is
Speaker 3: time for you to bond with them and be your
Speaker 3: little family. So having some little pre written messages or
Speaker 3: actually preempt it, like actually send messages to all your
Speaker 3: families and friends saying we love you, but just letting
Speaker 3: you know. This is our quirky prerequisites of what's required
Speaker 3: before you be able to come hover, Bring a plate
Speaker 3: of food, be vaccinated, and only come at this time
Speaker 3: of the day.
Speaker 2: You put the kettle on, because they will not be
Speaker 2: doing anything for you. Exactly what's happening to me? Well,
Speaker 2: we started to talk about it, what's happening with our
Speaker 2: body or the things that we might be looking at,
Speaker 2: but what else is happening for the mother? At twenty
Speaker 2: seven weeks?
Speaker 3: Time to start talking about stretch marks. Now, a lot
Speaker 3: of the marginetic okay, so don't feel bad if no
Speaker 3: matter how much cream you're putting on and you're trying
Speaker 3: really hard, they just appear. So some of us are
Speaker 3: lucky don't get any, but yet other things and some aren't,
Speaker 3: and it's hard.
Speaker 1: Do they go away? Not really?
Speaker 3: They often shrink, you know, like some people find that
Speaker 3: they have very little, so you know, they might be
Speaker 3: quite light and then they fade over years to come.
Speaker 3: There's certainly people that have treatment and you know, laser
Speaker 3: therapian things I've heard.
Speaker 1: I've never tried it because.
Speaker 3: I'm lucky one that doesn't have them. But I think
Speaker 3: it's one of those things they're change the narrative around it.
Speaker 3: Like if you get stretch marks on your belly, just
Speaker 3: like a caesarean, you know scar, if you have it,
Speaker 3: they're the beautiful marks of you growing your baby. And
Speaker 3: so you know, I have a few friends who are
Speaker 3: African American descent and they have some of the most
Speaker 3: wicked stretch marks I've ever seen, and they still run.
Speaker 3: They aften athletes, They still run in their two pieces
Speaker 3: and they just like, look at this, this is me
Speaker 3: growing my baby and proof that I've done incredible thing
Speaker 3: and I'm coming out and attacking the world again.
Speaker 1: So again.
Speaker 3: And a lot of the time it's about our perception
Speaker 3: of what other people are going to think about our bodies,
Speaker 3: when actually it should be Wow, I had the privilege
Speaker 3: to be a woman who carried a baby, and you know,
Speaker 3: these are the marks I'm left with.
Speaker 2: It's a hard conversation to have because a lot of
Speaker 2: people don't have a great relationship with their body changing
Speaker 2: beyond their control. And that can be something from like
Speaker 2: a body dysmorphous situation or bad eating habits or history
Speaker 2: of any type of eating disorder. So if people haven't
Speaker 2: found that joy within the change in their body, what
Speaker 2: are some of the things that they can do to
Speaker 2: help their mental space around that.
Speaker 3: Well, that's a tough one. I think we've sort of
Speaker 3: touched on it. I think reaching out and talking about
Speaker 3: it is a big one if it really is playing
Speaker 3: like I have, I had needing disorder as an athlete,
Speaker 3: I had quite significant disordered eating regime which almost went
Speaker 3: away as from a sport when you know, sort of ended.
Speaker 3: But I think it's really important to acknowledge that that's
Speaker 3: the case. Talk to a few people, find out what
Speaker 3: your triggers are, and you know, that's the time where
Speaker 3: you've got to be really careful with intoad like we
Speaker 3: talked about before, where you're not doing that comparisons to
Speaker 3: others because everybody's so beautiful and so different, and it
Speaker 3: might be time that you need to check in with
Speaker 3: a psychologists if it's truly plaguing you in that space,
Speaker 3: because it's you know, it is a remarkable thing, but
Speaker 3: so many of us can't see the wood through the trees,
Speaker 3: like it's just you're so caught up in the moment
Speaker 3: and the emotions and the hormones and everything. But I
Speaker 3: can tell you one lovely thing, is it is true
Speaker 3: that when that baby arrives, you're very distracted, so you're not.
Speaker 2: Going to care. I love that. Is this normal?
Speaker 1: Is normal?
Speaker 2: Now? Is this normal having another ultrasound? Because some people
Speaker 2: who told me they have had a thirty week ultrasound
Speaker 2: while they're booking in around about now for this next ultrasound,
Speaker 2: But then in other departments they're not booking that in
Speaker 2: And the last time you're going to see your baby
Speaker 2: is that twenty week ultrasound and you're only being checked
Speaker 2: by a doppler. Why are some people getting an ultrasound
Speaker 2: and some people aren't?
Speaker 3: Well, sometimes it's maternal choice. So women decide they don't
Speaker 3: want any more ultrasounds in pregnancy.
Speaker 2: Why would they not want more? Who is there something about?
Speaker 2: Like is there X ray?
Speaker 1: Is it not the safe?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 3: There's a multitude of things. So, because I ask a
Speaker 3: lot of women in this space, they don't want to
Speaker 3: know the position of their baby necessarily. They don't want
Speaker 3: to know if their babies getting too big for their
Speaker 3: body because I think it'll dissuade them from a vaginal birth.
Speaker 3: They want the secret of not knowing what they look
Speaker 3: like until later. So I guess they're just wanting it
Speaker 3: as natural as possible, and it's still medical from an
Speaker 3: interventional perspective. It might find something that I want to
Speaker 3: see and then they have to have multiple ultrasounds after that.
Speaker 3: But the twenty eight week ultrasound in a public hospital
Speaker 3: is recommended for women with diabetes, for women with hypertension,
Speaker 3: for women who've had a previous small baby, or any
Speaker 3: real medical condition that might affect the pregnancy. So even
Speaker 3: Southeast Asian women, for example, are a higher risk of
Speaker 3: smaller babies. So we often say, if you've got that
Speaker 3: plus for example, you know you smoke or you have
Speaker 3: a high ber mit. There's plenty of reasons you can
Speaker 3: sneak in for that ultrasound if you want to see
Speaker 3: a baby.
Speaker 1: Because I love it. I would have would have had.
Speaker 3: An auld hunt every week because I you know, watch
Speaker 3: the baby on the scan. But that's the reason we
Speaker 3: do that at twenty eight weeks. Why twenty eight weeks
Speaker 3: because it's around the time we start to see differences
Speaker 3: in babies growth, and so we use it as a baseline.
Speaker 3: So unless it's multiple pregnancy because by then you've probably
Speaker 3: already had lots of ultrasounds because we scan every two
Speaker 3: to four weeks for twins and multiples. But if it's
Speaker 3: your first ultrasound after the morphology, it'll be the baseline
Speaker 3: we use ongoing. So for many women they have another
Speaker 3: two ultrasounds if it's the high risk pregnancies, and one
Speaker 3: at twenty eight weeks, one again at thirty two weeks,
Speaker 3: and one at thirty six, and we actually look at
Speaker 3: the growth between the three of them.
Speaker 1: Has babies growth dropped off? Has it accelerated?
Speaker 3: You know significantly that we need to consider changing the
Speaker 3: plan for pregnancy, And so it's important to sort of
Speaker 3: have them if you've been recommended, because it allows us
Speaker 3: what I guess the grace of the thing is, imagine
Speaker 3: getting a thirty six weeks You've got a teeny tiny baby,
Speaker 3: but we have nothing to compare it to, so it
Speaker 3: gives us that tracking trajectory to say, right, well, baby
Speaker 3: was already small at twenty eight weeks, they're actually doing great,
Speaker 3: They're actually gone up a few centiles. When not as
Speaker 3: concerned it's going to be less intervention rather than more,
Speaker 3: and what can we.
Speaker 2: Do the last week of our second track mess day.
Speaker 2: Is there anything we need to be thinking about on
Speaker 2: our checklist if we are booking in for that ultrasound,
Speaker 2: or is there anything more holistic we can be doing.
Speaker 1: Sure, I think a couple of things.
Speaker 3: Just to note this, as you approach twenty eight weeks,
Speaker 3: if you have that negative blood group, it's about time
Speaker 3: to have You may have had an insiding event in
Speaker 3: the past, but you definitely need to have your anti
Speaker 3: d around this time. You have it again in the
Speaker 3: third trimester, so book that in. You'll have those blood tests.
Speaker 3: Remember we talked about the syphilis is going to come up,
Speaker 3: and you have your OgTs hopefully done, and we'll recheck
Speaker 3: your eye and things like that. So it's just kind
Speaker 3: of time to check back in with your medical team
Speaker 3: and redo it. It's about fifteen percent of women will
Speaker 3: need that anti antid vaccination and.
Speaker 1: The red flags red flags, red flags, red flags.
Speaker 3: If there's any concerns, call your birth unit.
Speaker 2: My toolkit this week. You touched on it a little
Speaker 2: bit last week when we were talking about a bum
Speaker 2: related clothing Mine is Facebook marketplace for baby items. Great
Speaker 2: pretty much any if you're in a city and I'm
Speaker 2: sure if there's regional Facebook ones that exist, there's normally
Speaker 2: a like pay It Forward group, which is people getting
Speaker 2: rid of free stuff. I got a co sleeper bassinet
Speaker 2: for free, fantastic, which I'm stoked about. I got a
Speaker 2: pregnancy pillow for free. Some people might think that's weird
Speaker 2: to get a secondhand pillow, but I don't care, Like
Speaker 2: who cares? I don't want to pay for it. And
Speaker 2: I also got a two hundred dollars Bugaboo pram.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's amazing from a very rich suburb away from
Speaker 2: where I live. But you did the drive, but I
Speaker 2: did the drive. But a two hundred dollars Bugaboo.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I think for me, the only thing I'm looking
Speaker 2: to buy new is probably a car seat, okay, everything else.
Speaker 3: Because you don't know if it's been in an accident
Speaker 3: or anything before, so it's probably is the safer thing
Speaker 3: to buy you. I mean, I bought one secondhand, but
Speaker 3: you know, I think it's again dependent on how much
Speaker 3: you trust the person who's owned the seat before. I
Speaker 3: bought a snoo secondhand. You got a snow for my twins,
Speaker 3: not for the other pregnancies, but when I had two
Speaker 3: little babies to try and you know, one's trying to
Speaker 3: feed and the other ones trying to sleep. I think
Speaker 3: the thing to remember with Facebook marketplace too, is if
Speaker 3: you buy it for something, you can often sell it
Speaker 3: for the same thing. So it's just having the budget
Speaker 3: there to buy it and then often I made money
Speaker 3: on my Snow, I'm going to be honest because I
Speaker 3: did the same as you. I went and got it
Speaker 3: from somewhere miles away, and then I sold.
Speaker 1: It locally and someone paid it one hundred bucks for it.
Speaker 2: I just think about, like, what information have I pushed
Speaker 2: out of my brain to now know that the snoo
Speaker 2: is like the Royalty Love cribs And I'm now like, oh,
Speaker 2: that's impressive.
Speaker 1: I know it is. It is very impressive. Have to
Speaker 1: be honest with you.
Speaker 3: But I think the other thing is to write a
Speaker 3: list now everything you want yep, and then go and
Speaker 3: speak to someone who's had babies and they'll cross three
Speaker 3: quarters of it off.
Speaker 1: This is time to save money because you're gonna need
Speaker 1: it down the track. Yes, and you could always buy.
Speaker 3: Something from one of the baby bunting stop shops and
Speaker 3: it'll likely be delivered within forty eight hours, so you
Speaker 3: don't need to buy everything now, and there's so much
Speaker 3: stuff that gets unwrapped and not used, and it's just
Speaker 3: a way of money.
Speaker 2: I will say when I went to a baby bunting
Speaker 2: and another baby store, I got quite overwhelmed in there
Speaker 2: because they came to me about the prams and said
Speaker 2: how fast do you think you'll walk? And what type
Speaker 2: of ground will you be on? Most commonly to talk
Speaker 2: about the wheels that I would want, and I was like, well, well,
Speaker 2: too much, yeah, exactly, too many questions. I would just
Speaker 2: want that thing that has the coffeeholder of the important
Speaker 2: things in That's all I want. And then I just
Speaker 2: spoke to friends and I think you find out the brands,
Speaker 2: and then I heard that a Bugaboo was a good brand,
Speaker 2: and then my phone just was like, hey, here's one
Speaker 2: great Damne.
Speaker 3: And you can have more than one PRAM, like I
Speaker 3: think you have different prams for different things, like I
Speaker 3: do have a running PRAM because obviously I run regularly.
Speaker 3: And then your shopping pram things that you're to look
Speaker 3: at is are you going to shop a lot? Are
Speaker 3: you going to be able to fit it through shopping aisles?
Speaker 3: So and just remember you can swap like fokes again.
Speaker 3: If you buy a second hand, you sell it, you
Speaker 3: buy something else.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was cheap. We hope you enjoyed this episode
Speaker 2: of Hello Bump. We have so many episodes of this
Speaker 2: series filled with tips and stories from women and experts
Speaker 2: who've been through it all before.
Speaker 3: You can go back and listen to everything else Hello
Speaker 3: Bump related in this podcast.
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Speaker 3: This episode was produced by Courtney Ammenhauser with audio production
Speaker 3: by Tom Lyon.
Speaker 1: We'll catch you next time.
Speaker 2: This episode of Hello Bump was made in partnership with Huggies.
Speaker 2: Bye Bye