The Tribune

By KIRKLAND H PRATT

ALL OF the pregnant women that you see around Nassau are not in your imagination; there really are that many. Three weeks ago, in between visits to a local retail establishment, each of the sales associates (with whom I have become acquainted with over the years) I met all sported a new baby bumps. The count per my last visit was three; the establishment employs four in total. Each is on their third pregnancy – and each offering that “there must be something in the water”. What’s more, one of the young ladies volunteered that the same scenario was playing out with employees along the mall strip. Is this typical, though, of the broader Bahamian society?

According to data provided by the Bahamas Department of Statistics on live births, the population in 1970 was 170,000; that year accounted for 4,894 live births. Compare this to recorded live births in 2010 at 5,362 in a population of 340,000, and a downward shift is apparent. Hypothesis may suggest that perhaps my experience during my store outing may be deceiving, either that or the same women are becoming pregnant over and over again.

Pregnancy may offer a natural high for some women, not in the way that drugs and alcohol do, but some mothers feel compelled to continue to create new life for complex reasons that are not unlike to those of women who indulge in substance abuse.

As stated by Beverly Hills psychiatrist Dr Carol Lieberman, “Women who are obsessed with being pregnant are literally filling the emptiness inside of them, just as alcoholics and drug addicts use substances to fill a psychological void.”

Dr Lieberman further argued that other causes for repeated pregnancies might be related with women craving attention or dealing with feelings of abandonment by their own parents.

Conversely, New York family therapist Bonnie Eaker Weil, author of “Financial Infidelity”, posits: “You want to have purpose in this world. You want to feel less lonely.” The implication here is that being with child may offer company for some ‘serial mothers’.

The serial mother phenomenon isn’t solely a cognitive condition, however, much is actually physiological.

Dr Helen Fisher, a professor of anthropology at Rutgers University, said the hormone oxytocin (sometimes called the “cuddle” hormone) promotes bonding, floods women’s bodies during sex, gestation, delivery and nursing. If this hormone manifests most during pregnancy, it follows that this phenomenon is “seasonal” per pregnancy and as such the perpetual cycle of pregnancy repeats itself at the will and sheer joy of the mother.

Moreover, and let’s face it, most people enjoy sex. Mother nature has seen to it. What is equally fascinating is that this oxytocin that promotes bonding, floods women’s bodies during intercourse, pregnancy and childbirth and breast-feeding. Contrary to popular belief, many pregnant women experience increased libido and erotic thoughts during gestation as opposed to losing interest in sex completely.

Socially, pregnancy is intriguing and comes with much attention from the curious to the anticipating. Childless women who are looking on often want to know of the experience, and men (who will never experience it for themselves) take a delight in monitoring the evolution of this growing life before their very eyes.

Confessed serial mother, Barb Pomeroy, 42, of Longmont, Colorado, is a mother of six girls. According to Ms Pomeroy, there is this feeling of being special when you’re pregnant.

“I feel like I become ordinary again when I am not expecting,” she said.

With a normal pregnancy, strangers smile at you, friends shower you with gifts, your growing belly attracts attention and yours becomes a story for all to share in. It is not hard then to understand Ms Pomeroy’s position.

Suffice it to say, not all women with lots of children are serial mothers. A generation ago in the Bahamas a woman having birthed six to 12 children was often the norm.

I imagine several factors contributed to this way of Bahamian life, among them social resistance to birth control, a more “spiritual” outlook on reproduction, the idea of an “old age pension” (an old-fashioned school of thought which posits that small football team of kids would secure you financially and otherwise).

Moreover, the oxytocin bug has not hit every woman who has had multiple children. For many, bearing children may be more than a search for a connection; in some cases relationship hopping to find “the one” ends up in one pregnancy per relationship. Very closely tied to the aforementioned but not the same is the “baby daddy” meal ticket. For the transient serial mom, locking in a percentage of an unsuspecting man’s salary by way of his obligation to his child or children may also prove as motivation to have multiple births.

All things considered, and motivation aside, life is precious. Parenthood is an honour more than it is a right, and should be considered as such. Women who feel that somehow they are more intrigued with the process of pregnancy than rearing the resulting child may need to seek therapy and/or counselling from a certified counsellor or psychologist. In the end, the best possible quality of life for any child is largely dependent on the preparedness of his/her parents to lead, groom, cultivate and empower.

Keep thinking though, you’re good for it!

• Kirkland H Pratt, MSCP, is a counselling psychologist with a master’s degree in counselling psychology with an emphasis in education. He lectures in industrial psychology and offers counselling and related services to individuals and businesses. For comments, contact kirklandpratt@gmail.com.