Information overload

I've been slowly making my way through the reams of information they gave us at our first antenatal appointment. In six different places they describe what to expect on your first antenatal appointment. I was unable to find any of that online beforehand… there's some kind of irony in that somewhere. Not sure where, but the end result is that now we know what to expect from here on out — which is a good thing.

In a few of the booklets there are lists of everything which can go wrong with the pregnancy. I understand why it's there, but it is rather disconcerting. I find myself thinking, "well, what would I do?" to each of the various things that can go wrong. I also find myself getting paranoid about things that I can control. "Is there too much vitamin A in dinner? We had spinach last night, can I put a carrot in dinner tonight? Is there too much A in garden peas?. I even asked the midwife about it, and she told me not to worry as long as I don't cook liver, but somehow that hasn't set my mind at ease.

There's a thing called a Bounty Bag, which, as far as I can tell, is targeted advertising with information mostly cut-and-pasted from the NHS documents. Okay, I do it a disservice, since there is actually new material in there, but the majority of information is redundant. Which means in the 300 pages of documents, I probably only have to read like 50 pages of content — but I've no idea which 50 pages. Reading randomly seems to satisfy the engineer in me. I find things like Avoid sheep! which would have never occurred to me to do (mostly from the lack of live sheep in London), but I'm certainly going to do now.

Which most of the material seems reasonably professionally put together, I find much of it leaves out any mention of partners. One mothering magazine I read in the waiting room only mentioned men once in an article on postnatal nookie. I was hoping the article on going back to work, which claimed to give every possible option, would mention options for how to share the childcare load between two people. Not a mention — it was all about either staying at home, or working and getting full time childcare.

Most of the Bounty Bag material is the same, with little mention of men, and almost all photos just mums with babies — which is who they are trying to sell too, so I should not be surprised. The NHS material does a better, more complete job of it, which I appreciate. But, to be honest, what I'd like is a Useful Things a Partner Can Do During Gestation booklet. I suspect that's not going to be coming my way anytime soon. Though any advice in the comments on this blog would be appreciated.