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Bedrest: a novel
Filed under: Your Pregnancy, Places To Go
My favorite line in Sarah Bilston's New York Times editorial on the prevalence
and dangers of bedrest during pregnancy in the United States comes in italics at the very end. Sarah Bilston, a
professor of English at Trinity College, is the author of the forthcoming "Bed Rest," a novel.At about 32 weeks of pregnancy, I was put on bedrest for what ended up being six weeks. While Bilston's own "rest cure" included lying immobile on her left side 24 hours a day, mine was more like summer camp in my bed. Unlike the Victorian women who were on the receiving end of the first modern rest cures and were not allowed to sew, I did craft - knit, actually . I spent the majority of my bedrest working on Truman's blanket (he was going to be born really soon, due the same day as my own son) and willing coffee ice cream to come to me via visiting friends (which worked so often it was eerie). I even hosted Sarah's blessingway, violating my bedrest to vacuum the house! The rest of my time I actually laid down and rested, and did my HypBirth CDs. A visit to the midwife's office became like a thrilling trip to the moon, and I milked it by getting all dressed up and stopping for breakfast on the way.
At first I thought this was all pretty fun, and exciting since it probably meant that Binx would be born sooner rather than later. What I didn't anticipate was how physically debilitating it would be. As Bilston writes in the Times, "The change from an active,<p> fulfilling professional life to one of complete immobility left me weakened and depleted just when my strength was most needed for the rigors of birth and motherhood." Oh yeah. Exactly. I felt nearly dead with weakness already when I embarked on motherhood. As a (very amateur) athlete prior to pregnancy, I didn't realize until it was too late how hard the change would be on my mind as well as my body. My image of myself altered from an active, vital, full-of-life pregnant woman to a broken mess, so weak I could not - like Bilston - walk around the block.
Ten months later, I'm certainly in better shape. But I still haven't gotten my athleticism back, and I miss it. It wreaks havoc with my self-image. And while I realize any birth experience sets the body back and takes time to recover from, I can't help feeling that bedrest forced me to start from behind. Way behind.
As a women's studies minor in college, I loved Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper - a story about madness caused by bedrest. Bilston is very familiar with it, as evidenced by her editorial. I'm so glad Bilston's novel is coming soon. I can't wait for another literary treat on this debilitating, unproven and very over-used "treatment." I can totally relate.
[Thanks to Elizabeth for the tip, and the US Library of Congress for the photo.]
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ReaderComments (Page 1 of 1)
3-28-2006 @ 1:28AM
Susan MacPherson said...I am a postpartum doula who has had some experience with women on bedrest who have a bigger hill to climb once they have their babies because they are often so weakened by the experience. Of course they will do anything to have a healthy baby but with something like bedrest that has such extreme consequences, it would be nice to know there is more science behind it. I was lucky to have been on bedreat for only about two weeks with my daughter, due to toxemia, but the experience has so stuck in my mind that I am working with another doula to help train antepartumdoulas for the difficult times that occur before the baby comes. It will make a difference to know that someone is out there to help you if you are asked to stop everything and lay down.
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3-28-2006 @ 4:06PM
dollymama said...Six years ago I spent 7 weeks on bedrest while pregnant with my fourth child. While I do believe that bedrest probably did help to forstall an even earlier premature birth, the physical depletion that went along with it is something I am still struggling with today.
Since having that fourth child I have had two more. I am just this year to the point where I have the energy to try to exercise and to basically give myself some "physical therapy" to try to overcome the major loss of strength, muscle tone, and so forth that happened from that time spent in bed.
While I was on bedrest I read that for every day spent on bedrest it takes at least 7 days of normal activity to recover from it. When you add in major blood loss, heavy medications to try to stop premature labor, a surgical birth, and many weeks of a new baby living in the NICU, it becomes much longer.
Bedrest was rough and I wish I had been able to do more for myself afterwards. My kids are worth it, of course, but it hasn't been easy.
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3-28-2006 @ 5:29PM
Bonnie said...6 kids???!!! Hopefully this won't come off as insensitive, but you don't think that has anything to do with you not having enough energy?
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3-31-2006 @ 5:23PM
Mary Louise Murray-Johnson said...All the insufferable mothers who have given birth to healthy children and do not give any credit to their physicians for perhaps helping them to deliver full term babies! How about the mothers (whose physicians were hesitant to recommend bedrest to their high achieving lawyers, financiers, whatever patients) who delivered prematurely to now low achieving children with various problems? As a mother of 4 (normal) children from the 1960s I remember we were confronted with some of these same questions. My example in those days was the actress, Sophia Loren, who, after several miscarriages, produced 2 healthy and now famous sons - after 2 long "bouts" of bedrest in Switzerland. Her example of putting her life on hold for the sake of her unborn children has always remained profound for me. I hear a lot of selfishness and naivite in the 2006 words of Sarah Bilston and her contemporaries.
Mary Louise
New York
March 31, 2006
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5-08-2006 @ 4:16PM
Maggy said...I definitely agree that bedrest does affect your physical and mental health. I am currently pregnant for the second time in less than a year. I miscarried April of 2005 with no clear answers why. In January I found out I was pregnant again. Under doctor's orders I was put on bedrest less than two weeks after finding out. I am not due until August 26 and feel like I have lost my mind and sense of self. I am what will be a single mother once he is born. It drives me crazy trying to figure out how to prepare and provide for him when I have been taken out of the workforce. I went from being a professional to being a person trying to just get through the day. Physically I can't sit or stand for long periods of time and get out of breath just going to check on the mail. Mentally I'm depressed and very scared. So for all those who have not experienced being on bedrest and the feelings that go along with it, be happy you were one of the lucky ones.
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