Shit Fat Pregnant People Get Told: "Fat [people] won't feel their babies move as early as thin people"

[Contains: fat-hate, gender essentialism]

I mean, I am pretty fucking creative at swearing, and I have yet to come up with a profanity-riddled screed that adequately describes the levels of rage, frustration, anger, and disdain this statement engenders in me. (By the way. Well-Rounded Mama covers this particular myth far more kindly and way less-profanity-ridden-ly than I am going to here.)

I started googling "quickening" and "fetal movement" right around week 12 of my pregnancy, because I was pretty sure that fucking weird popping sort of sensation I was feeling was The Kid. I was laying on the floor one night, watching The Man play Assassin's Creed 4, felt this sort of tapping pop-pop-pop down low on the left side, and thought "... the fuck is thAT THE KID WAIT". Especially since it really wasn't like anything I'd felt before. And some sites were okay, but then I would come across things like this (gender essentialist language in this quote):

Most women begin to feel movement somewhere between weeks 18 and 22, though veteran moms tend to feel the baby moving a little sooner than first-timers. Chalk it up to laxer abdominal muscles (there has to be some benefit to those!) or merely the fact that second-timers are more likely to recognize a kick when they feel it. Thinner moms-to-be may also feel movement earlier and more often than those carrying a lot of extra weight, since there's less padding to serve as insulation.

Emphasis mine.

That's not as bad as some I've run across, especially in forums or websites for pregnant folks. There it tends to turn in to "thinner women will feel their babies move sooner than heavier women." The absolute, instead of the "may". (Emphasis mine again... usually.)

To which I reply: BULLLLLLLLLSHIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTT

I know one of the super-fuck-popular fat-hating trends right now in "health" circles is "visceral fat". It's this special SUPER-SCARY fat that YOU CAN'T ALWAYS SEE and it's AROUND YOUR ORGANS and OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG.

Note though, that it's AROUND your organs, not IN THEM. And when you're a pregnant person feeling those first early weird little flutters, you're feeling them from the INSIDE of your uterus. Where there is not a layer of "padding" "insulating" you from the fetus, besides the placenta. (Having an anterior placenta CAN make it harder to feel kicks and movement... but it's not because of fat either.) Your particular fetus is kicking, punching, or just slamming itself in to the inner surface of your uterus, where I assure you, you do have some nerve endings. At 12 weeks pregnant, the fetus is pretty small, so if you don't feel it, that's okay. And it's not because of your weight. It's because it's really small and it might just not have enough force for you to feel it yet. I promise, I PROMISE, that regardless of your weight, regardless of your size, even if your BMI is 40 or above like mine, if you carry a pregnancy to term? YOU WILL FEEL THE FETUS MOVE AT SOME POINT. IT WILL HAPPEN.

Now, if we're talking about, say, your partner or spouse or bestie or whomever being able to feel the kicks and punches from the outside of your belly? There I can buy that fat may play a role... but I also don't think it plays a big one. Turns out my fat at least tends to jiggle and transmit movement pretty well. Also, So once The Kid is capable of generating enough force that The Man can possibly feel it outside, yeah, my fat miiiight mean that it'll be a little harder for him to feel it, and he might not feel the full force at first. But I also have very clear memories of my mom's last pregnancy (I was 12 at the time), and I have virtually the exact same body shape and size as my mom, and we could 100% feel the baby that turned in to my sister kicking with zero problems.

Something I've also noticed as my own pregnancy has progressed, and which gets hinted at in some discussions of diastasis recti and such, is that my uterus is kind of just... pushing things to the sides. Like it's definitely expanding forward, not just upward. So there's just less fat covering it than there was in a few weeks ago. That fat for me, has been pushed to the sides. So I buy the "oh fat padding" argument even less, really. Again, every body is different. My experience is not universal. But given how often I see "remedies" for diastasis recti, I'm betting it's at least pretty common.

I do think that some folks who tell you this mean well. Pregnancy can be incredibly anxiety-provoking, and I know my experience is that I like to know reasons for why things are happening like they are. And "it's just your fat getting in the way" is way more reassuring of a reason for not feeling anything than "something's wrong with the baby", which it can be really easy to default to. But one, it's not true, and two, it plays in to this whole idea of "well fat people don't deserve nice things" that is so incredibly common. Well-Rounded Mama touched on this too - "you get to be pregnant fattie, but you don't get any of the fun stuff like we virtuous thin folks do!" And while I do think that fat folk and not-fat folk experience some parts of pregnancy differently - it's part of why I started this blog - the underlying idea behind this, that all fat people don't get to experience the "fun" parts of pregnancy, or not as much, is just so much bullshit.

Besides which, intent is not fucking magic. (Does anyone know who first came up with this? Because I see it everywhere, but first came across it at Shakesville, and a search is not helping me.) I don't really give a shit if you intend to comfort me by saying "oh it's okay fat people don't feel their babies move as early." It's still wrong, it's still contributing to fat hate, and it's still bullshit. Please talk all you want about how everyone is different, and everyone feels their baby move at different times. That is absolutely true. But stop blaming it on fat.