- With Mayo Clinic certified nurse-midwife
Mary M. Murry, R.N., C.N.M.
read biographyclose windowBiography of
Mary M. Murry, R.N., C.N.M.
Mary M. Murry, R.N., C.N.M.
Mary Murry is a certified nurse-midwife in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn.
Murry, a Cincinnati native, has been a nurse-midwife practitioner for more than 20 years and is an instructor at the College of Medicine, Mayo Clinic. She was a contributing reviewer and writer of the "Mayo Clinic Guide to a Healthy Pregnancy" book.
Her research interests include adult female survivors of sexual abuse, women's perception of pain in labor, and obesity in pregnancy.
Latest entries
- Foreskin: To keep or not to keep?
May 21, 2013
- Travel during pregnancy
May 7, 2013
- Gas in pregnancy
April 23, 2013
- Varicose veins and pregnancy: Legs and more
April 10, 2013
- You're pregnant! How will you share the news?
March 26, 2013
Free
E-newsletter
Subscribe to Housecall
Our weekly general interest
e-newsletter keeps you up to date
on a wide variety of health topics.
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Pregnancy and you blog
-
March 27, 2012
Old wives' tales about pregnancy: Any merit?
By Mary M. Murry, R.N., C.N.M.
When you're pregnant, you're sure to hear many old wives' tales. People often share these tales with authority and surety, even though they originated ages ago simply as a way to explain something that was mysterious or didn't make sense. I guess the old wives were coincidentally right often enough to make believers of others.
Maybe you've heard this old wives' tale about pregnancy — if you raise your hands over your head or roll over in bed without first sitting up, the umbilical cord will become wrapped around the baby's neck. I can assure you, however, that your actions or body movements have no effect on the baby's umbilical cord. The baby is in his or her own separate little world.
Or maybe you've been told that your pregnancy heartburn is a sure sign that your baby will be born with a full head of hair. This one isn't likely to be accurate, either. I once had a patient who struggled with terrible heartburn. Sure enough, the baby was born bald. The grandmother said that the heartburn was so bad it must have burned off the baby's hair.
Then there are the old wives' tales for predicting the sex of the baby. There are so many of these that I couldn't begin to list them all. It seems that women have wanted to know the sex of their unborn children since the beginning of time. Here's one of my favorites — it'll be a girl if the woman is the aggressor during conception sex, and it'll be a boy if the man works the hardest. What's funny to me is that every one of these tales has a 50/50 chance of being correct. Flipping a coin would give you the same odds.
Of course, that brings me to all of the tales about how to jump-start labor. Eat spicy food, drink castor oil, eat a whole pineapple, have sex. Are any of these likely to work? Probably not. You might get contractions — since any of these activities can expose you to the hormone prostaglandin — but whether the contractions will turn into labor is doubtful.
Despite advances in science, various aspects of pregnancy and childbirth remain mysterious. Sometimes there are more questions than answers. Just like the old wives, we'll continue to seek explanations for things we don't understand. Faith in a few old wives tales isn't likely to hurt anything — but if you keep rolling your eyes at me, your eyes are sure to fall out!
5 comments posted
January 31, 2013 2:02 p.m.
Has any one ever heard the old wives tale that if the Maternal Grandmother has gray hair then the unborn child will be a __________?
- Judy
January 16, 2013 11:11 a.m.
I tried every suggestion that anyone mentioned to try to get labor to start - pineapple, spicy food, walking, jumping jacks, sex, jogging down hills, driving on a bumpy road, raspberry leaf tea, zumba. The only thing I didn't do was drink Castor Oil because I had read that it was not safe. Nothing worked. Pitocin was the only thing that worked for me!
- HR
June 21, 2012 5:18 a.m.
Very true what you said..Just need some clarification regarding this postpartum belly band..does it really work? or the exercises are just enough to get the diastasis recti vanish away? as you said,many old wives around are saying it is mandatory..but I really dot think so..help me out,please.
- Pal
April 7, 2012 4:41 p.m.
Funny, and you write well. I was not an English prof, except that we all should be.
- Evan
April 3, 2012 11:04 a.m.
I am past due by a few days, and I cannot tell you how many "suggestions" people have. However, they continue to tell me the days that I "don't" want to give birth such as April fools day, and odd numbered dates...not quite sure what difference this would make, but I have been told that quite a bit. I have just happened to eat spicy foods, but no go, and I eat them because my heart burn is finally gone!
- Christie
Share on:
5 comments posted