Why did no one smack the husband very hard until he begged for mercy and promised to mend his ass-ish ways?

Because it's not just him. She's just as stupid and ass-ish. She's ... how you say? One of those women who brings out the worst in men.

More women than you might think (or, at least, more than I thought before nursing school) are afraid of having a baby that's "too big." The smaller a baby is, it seems, the "cuter" it appears to those women.

The grotesque extreme of this is celebrities who get a scheduled c-section at 36 or 37 weeks' gestation, to avoid the weight gain in the 9th month of pregnancy (during which the baby's weight increases dramatically).

Okay, I am totally slack-jawed at these people. Slack-jawed at Aimée's friends and the harm they could have done their baby (and where was their OB? Why wasn't s/he saying You're not gaining enough and it is scaring the shit out of me?), equally slack-jawed at the c-section schedulers. Major abdominal surgery that 99% of moms are hoping like hell to avoid, chosen voluntarily? The fuck?

With a side of slack-jaw, as always, at the creepy celebrity culture (and agents and managers and whatnot) that's no doubt telling these women that if they gain too much they are worthless and professionally doomed.

I imagine OB was telling her to eat more. I also imagine that she blew him off.

Back in 1971, when my mom was pregnant with me, OB/GYNs didn't tell women to gain as much weight as they do now, or, at least, they didn't put such a strong emphasis on it. (Or possibly that was true of only my mom's OB/GYN.) In any case, she was a model before she met my dad, and when she got pregnant with me, she could wear her pre-pregnancy pants up to month 7, IIRC. I was 5 lb., 5 oz., and early.

I've managed to make up the low birth weight, and then some.

I don't recommend that pregnant women do what my mom did, but babies do okay when they're small. Fortunately. Because parents do dumb-ass things.

My mom's doctors were concerned because she only gained about 10 or 15 pounds when she was pregnant with me. I was a bit under 7 pounds when I was born. About the same amount of weight gain, and same weight of baby, with my sister.

On behalf of men everywhere, please feel free to smack any man who would do that.

Signed, tired of the asshats further sullying the image of men.

Yeah, but the proper response of a pregnant woman to the Other Genetic Contributor who complains of her being fat, is to grab him by the throat and say, "Listen up, dickhead. You have two choices: One, therapy including couples sessions in which you genuinely seek to change your dickhead attitude; or Two, you say that again on tape and I get to test my assumption that there ain't a jury in the world that would convict me."

Hey, JZ. Backflung.

I have some memory of the 70s being 'don't let the baby get too big' (well, not PERSONALLY). I have a cousin who was induced what turned out to be too early because of it.

Because it's not just him. She's just as stupid and ass-ish.

From the sound of it, I'd agree.

As for whoever wondered about the OB's response, there isn't a direct connection between mom's weight and baby's weight. I didn't gain any weight during the last two months of my pregnancy either, and I was eating just as much as I had been all pregnancy. The only one concerned about my lack of weight gain was me. The OB went by the increase of the fundus and by ultrasound scans of the baby, not by my weight.