Organic Baby

When I first became pregnant I bought a book about having an organic pregnancy, whatever that means. It was ridiculous. Not only was it written by two completely unqualified persons (journalists, oy) but what they claimed was completely unvalidated and lacked any substantial evidence to support their claims. In their view, if you didn't go out and buy a new 'organic' mattress, repaint your walls with 'organic' paint, and install a thousand dollar water filter, you were poisoning your fetus. Not to slant anyone's opinion of the publication, but I think they both worked for the New York Times at some point. If you are reading this and that media outlet still holds a positive place in your mind, stop reading and never come back to this blog again.

The truth is I buy into of that line of thinking a little bit- I take fish oil, I try to eat organic foods, and I have a soft spot for the environment. But you can't believe everything that you read or hear anymore. Just this week a huge report came out which debunks the idea that multivitamin supplements of any kind (fish oil, vitamin E, etc) are good for your health. In fact, the study claimed that multivitamins could actually be harmful to your health. Jeez-o-Pete! If you actually paid attention to every study that came out you'd be changing all of your habits on a weekly basis. Coffee is good, no it's bad. Wine is bad, no it's good. Broccoli is good, no it's just okay.

What I've learned is two-fold: 1) Don't listen to anything that anyone on TV says unless you've read their resume and they have legitimate research & scholastic merit in their background (this excludes every single news journalist and most of their guests) and 2) Everything in moderation. Want a donut? Then eat one. ONE. Eat a dozen and you're on your own, but one isn't going to kill you. Same goes for everything else that is allegedly terrible for you. Except crack. Crack really is whack.

And when you're pregnant you enter a whole new world of data-mined statistics. I've read that one glass of wine on occasion can:

a) lead to delinquency in the teenage years (Um, weren't we all a little delinquent for a moment in time during that period?)

b) create more relaxed toddlers (maybe because their mothers aren't freaking out about drinking one glass of wine?)

and/or

c) cause learning disabilities. Now I had a lisp and couldn't tell time until I was like 5 and my mom never touched the stuff- so what does that tell you? Nothing.

The lesson today is as follows- if you want to prove something is good or bad, you can always find the statistics to back that up. In the meantime, stop watching the news, it's all malarkey. Except for that bit about Illinois being the most corrupt state for political officials, that is actually true.