speak about pregnancy normal or not
normal the answer is yes it’s both
normal and not normal and I think it
should just be normal and this normal
man is here to tell you that today a
normal pregnancy is not normal
confusing right it’s because I mixed two
definitions and kept mixing them the
aspirational definition of a normal
pregnancy is a pregnancy without
problems first and foremost health
problems the factual or statistical
definition just look at which pregnancy
is the most frequent and takes that as
the norm so to be less confusing my
opening statement should in fact have
been a pregnancy without problems is not
frequent in fact it’s quite rare let’s
look at some facts a recent online
survey asked mothers if they had
encountered in relation to their
pregnancy a problem in four domains
health and medicine Planning and
Relations information and navigation and
last but not least work and career over
3,000 women participated and only 6% of
those mothers six percent said that they
had not encountered a problem in those
domains which means almost everybody
does
and so today statistically speaking a
normal pregnancy is a pregnancy that
encounters a problem or two even though
that is not the normality
that we desire I for one as a man as a
doctor did not know the extent of the
challenge in motherhood that it was so
high so how does how do we move a norm
an ID to a reality
let me demonstrate that to you right
here on stage how it works I’ll take
this chair to be the moral norm what is
desired and I’ll call I give her a name
she is madam should madam shoot is
beautiful comfortable expensive chic but
also a bit antique and I will play the
woman so the only way I can move the
morals to reality is to pull them to me
so let me do that sure how it goes as
the effects on any norm as we’ve heard
before move in the beginning nothing
happens but as tension builds up at a
certain moment to share it moves and
then suddenly it moves so this is a fact
that you should know the statistics the
people always go first because morals
never move by themselves it’s people
that moved them and when the morals move
they don’t move as smoothly as we do as
individuals as society they move in a
kind of a shocking way and there are two
problems associated with that number one
I have to do the work I have to pull I
feel the attention it’s wearing me down
I already have a problem in pregnancy
and on top of it I still have to fight
tomorrow long and the second problem is
that society generally puts all its
resources its infrastructure its
information that support system on madam
should not on madam is so the question
then becomes why is there so much
attention there and I only get tension
not attention
and how do I change those two the answer
became clear to me when recently I
discovered yet another motherhood effect
that I had previously not known about I
learned including at university that a
woman’s ability to conceive so her
fertility dramatically drops after the
age of 30 and certainly after 35 who
else has heard this almost everybody and
that explains why today this is a true
concern a tension for millions of women
especially in our part of the world
where women sometimes want to wait a bit
longer
to start a family but here’s a fact the
study on which this concept is based was
actually done in the 1700s by scholars
who went into the church to look into
the registries to look at the age of the
mother at birth and that’s how they
calculated this fertility evolution it’s
not very difficult to see how
dramatically different today’s
situations from the 1700s right a much
bigger and much better study ten years
ago looked at hundreds of couples in our
part of the world who were actively
trying to conceive and what they found
is that in women aged 34 to 39 82%
actually conceived naturally within one
year 82% is a lot better than the
prediction from 300 years ago which is
still in the textbooks in which we all
heard about and it’s only 4% lower than
what was observed in the age group from
27 to 34 frankly I felt shocked and
humbled when I learned about this and so
my concept of what is a normal mother
hood age shifted suddenly significantly
and dramatically like the chair
when it was pulled by facts that are
strong enough and once you focus on the
facts then automatically you will also
find solutions to support these new
realities so once you accept that women
not only will but can conceive later in
life you’ll find solutions to support
them did you know that both Apple and
Facebook offered their female employees
a grant to freeze their eggs just in
case they want to conceive later in life
I think it’s a brilliant way of going
beyond recognize a new reality to
actually providing true support for
women in their choices the question of
this whole topic of age also made me
realize that it’s not that difficult in
fact to change the tension into
attention because in fact the only thing
you need to do is a simple shift of
focus as long as I focus on the morals
and continue to moralize women who
happen to have a problem in pregnancy I
will fail them but when I shift my own
focus from the chair from the moral to
the woman to the reality and face the
facts then it becomes very easy just
imagine that a woman who has a problem
in pregnancy is no longer judged or
moralized is no longer feeling guilty or
blames that’s an incredible incredible
difference now you can say oh that’s all
very soft and woolly but it’s not
because you can never underestimate the
healing power of feeling normal
or feeling accepted of feeling okay it’s
so imagine a future where by for every
pregnancy this is the case that every
pregnancy is accepted the way it is an
older mother whatever it gets she gets
the information she needs she gets the
support that she needs that for me is
really a motherhood moonshot and I have
good news because this today is a
reality more than it has ever been
before
people individuals and organizations are
not waiting for a big global conference
although that may still help they’re
just putting actions in place based on
facts they learn just think about the
two companies I mentioned but even if
you are not working at a company like
that or even if you don’t have a
specific idea you can still help by
changing your concept of what is normal
in your own mind first and then in the
minds of those who are around you I
believe that it has never been possible
to do that as much as it is today just
think about the digital revolution
around us the social media revolution
today we can learn more about pregnancy
than we ever knew before there are about
10 million babies born in the US and
Europe every year and it’s estimated
today that already a quarter million
woman who are pregnant in the United
States enter some data about their
pregnancy into their mobile phones into
an app every day every day
just imagine how if we could with their
proper consent analyze a fraction of
that we would learn more and faster than
any historical study any planned study
or any current study can do I believe
that knowledge about the facts will
trigger the action that is needed and
this is also where governments come in
because they can structure the data
collection and the data sharing and they
can also put in place the new structures
and support and information that women
who face these problems really need at
work in
relations navigation health but above
all above all I believe in the power of
the individual each one of us each one
of us can change our definition of what
we call normal by looking at the facts
and in doing so we will change that
tension that currently is given to women
on top of their problem into attention
for them and into active support it’s
really about time that we change the
story of motherhood that we find the new
modern definitions of what is normal in
motherhood based on the facts and each
one of us each one of us has the
individual power to contribute to that
thank you [Applause]
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