Old Wives Tales

A few days ago I mentioned that Angel is running a competition on her blog.

Here is my contribution…

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There are a few old wives tales I came across in my pregnancy with Aaron, the following two always stuck with me because in my case they turned out to be (mostly) true.

Heartburn means the baby has a lot of hair.

I had heartburn so badly I had to be medicated in my last trimester.  The one day I didnt take the stuff I wanted to die the heartburn was so bad.  I did a Google search on “heartburn in pregnancy” and amongst the medical pages were a few pages telling me that my child will have lots and lots of hair.

According to our doctor you could actually see the hair on the ultrasounds.

When Aaron was born he didn’t have masses of hair but he wasn’t bald, so maybe, just maybe this old wives take is true.  Then again I know a lot of pregnant women who had hectic heartburn and had beautiful bald babies.

If the Linea Nigra* extends above the belly button then the baby is a boy.

I developed a little dark line very early on in my pregnancy, it reached to just below my belly button.  By the time we were 16 weeks along the line had stretched up above my belly button and ended just below my sternum.

According to the Old Wives I was having a boy.  For me they got it right.

* Another Old Wives Tale or Myth concerning the Linea Nigra is that the line itself serves as a ‘runway’ for baby.

Basically they say that once the baby is born it will be able to ‘crawl’ up its mother, following the line until it reaches the breasts.  This is also supposedly why the nipples are enlarged and the aureoles are darker, to make it easier for baby to find them.  This is all apparently a remnent of our time spent living in caves  and discovering fire.

Im not too sure how much of this is fact but I cant really see a new born managing to move all that way.  Maybe I’m wrong.  If anyone know more about it please let us know.