Oh, Rachel, even though I have just posted in favor of numbers, you are
obviously right!   I remember in the hospital, when I was about 6 hours pp
with my first child, a nurse running through a questionaire asked me "How
often do you move your bowels?"  and then added, "Before you became pregnant,
I mean?"  I stared at her in incredulity:   when I was pg I was a little
constipated and uncomfortable, so I might have had SOME idea how often, but
BEFORE I was pg?   I had no notion whatsoever.  Everything worked fine -- why
would I be counting?

But "my" moms are not starting from the position I was in before pregnancy
about myself, or that apparently Norwegian moms are about their babies --
that everything is normal and healthy and you'll only need to start counting
if things get messed up.  Instead, they are in a distorted position -- they,
and their pediatricians, already do have expectations about the numbers.  So
not giving them the "good" numbers just takes the whole thing out of their
control and makes it all too likely that the "bad" numbers will rule the
day...

Full of ambivalence -- Elisheva

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