A woman with bird’s nest hair plonked down next to me in a cafe last year, holding a tiny baby with dark chocolate eyes and a fluffball of black hair. She launched into a graphic description of her baby’s recent birth. “… and then Aunty Helen* barged right into the room holding up her phone, taking photos of my hoo-hars”.
I had never seen this woman before, wasn’t aware the word hoo-har could be a plural, and couldn’t have picked Aunty Helen out of a lineup for a cash prize. But somehow she knew I had written the pregnancy book she’d read. In her mind, I’d been through the pregnancy with her, so she was just giving me the exit report. It was lovely.
It makes me emotional, knowing that hundreds of thousands of pregnant women over the last 20 years have had my “voice” in their head for the journey. Readers tend to read it week by week as they progress in pregnancy, and they say, “How did you know I’d have a stuffed nose that week?” or “ I started to cry watching the news the exact same time you mentioned it”. Partly it’s because I took notes during my own pregnancy, about physical hassles, but also about feelings – something largely ignored by pregnancy books at the time. They assumed you lived in England or America, were married, white and terrified about carrot cake making your foetus too fat.
A lot has changed since the first edition of Up the Duff in 1999. Talkback callers are no longer scandalised by the title. Male book-page editors ignore it, rather than dismissing it in a paragraph, as one did then. My stretch marks have faded to silvery badges of honour.
Now 20 years of medical changes have been researched and added, and mental health issues such as depression and anxiety are covered, thanks to the help of Australian consultants, many of them world experts in their medical field.
While scientific research has identified more risk factors and developed new tests for rare problems, I wanted to keep the tone of the new edition comforting and fun. There’s new information, but people haven’t changed in 20 years. Everyone needs and deserves reassurance about a pregnancy. We have the same need for information, the same worries about childbirth and being a parent, the same confusion about what’s safe to eat while pregnant.
The newer routine tests that every pregnant woman is offered, and the ones that screen for genetic conditions, which can cost hundreds of dollars, can be complex and confusing. Not just whether to have them, but what the results mean. Different experts have gone over and over various sections to help me get the tone and facts right. It’s a wonder some of them haven’t blocked my number.
When I started researching the first edition most women didn’t know enough about their own pregnancies. Now, there’s “too much”: an ocean of advice, much of it misinformation. A “reputable” news outlet a while ago suggested using a gardening wheelbarrow as a pram (unsafe!), and a parenting website recommended squirting soapy water up your vagina soon after the birth to “keep things fresh down there”. Well, only if you fancy a fresh infection.
Social media wasn’t even a “thing” 20 years ago. You didn’t look at your phone and see pictures of women in crop tops brandishing a mango at you and giving pregnancy “nutrition” advice despite having no qualifications. Or feel you had to put on a show. Now we’re bombarded with heaps of hard-sell ads and pressure to buy expensive apps (mostly totally useless).
Back then hardly anyone knew if they were having a boy or a girl – now nearly everyone can, and many wonder whether a gender reveal party is a good idea. (The new Up the Duff has a list of pros and cons; cons include starting a bushfire with baby-blue fireworks.)
There are a lot of jokes and cartoons in the book, but the new sections on miscarriage, stillbirth and terminations for medical reasons required a delicate approach. You don’t get to choose whether these things happen to you, and they’re never “your fault”. Everyone deserves the best information to help with their decisions, even if their parenthood has been invisible to others. And while old editions say babies move less towards the end of a pregnancy – approved advice at the time – the new one explains that we can reduce the rate of stillbirths if everyone monitors their baby’s movements after 35 weeks and knows that less movements than usual means they need to see a doctor.
We now know the risk is less when a pregnant woman tries not to sleep on her back in the last weeks, too. Reliable new research shows women with south Asian or African heritage may expect a “full-term” pregnancy of 38 weeks, not 40. Advice on reducing the risk of sudden infant death has changed and been refined over the years.
So I’m trying to get the word out that people should use all second-hand copies of Up the Duff for souvenir, compost or kindling purposes only.
What will Up the Duff cover in another 20 years? Babies in space? Robot rockers? I know this for sure: I’ll still be updating it every year, and I’ll definitely hold your baby for you, in a cafe, while you go to the loo. But no, I won’t want to see Aunty Helen’s photo of your hoo-hars.
Kaz Cooke is author of Up the Duff and its sequel Babies & Toddlers, which replaced the old Kid Wrangling (which is now also good for compost); Girl Stuff 8-12, and Girl Stuff 13+.
*Aunty Helen’s name has been changed.
