#disability and pregnancy

[cripplecharacters]

Hello, I'm writing a novel and I'm curious if you have any resources or mods that could answer on the topic of full term pregnancy for characters with physical and mental disabilities? The character I'm writing is an amputee (both legs lost to sepsis) who struggles with psychosis/BPD and takes plethora of medications.

Would she have to go cold turkey to carry to term? Would the pregnancy have any negative effect on her physical disability? Just want to get my facts gathered before I start writing something I'm entirely unfamiliar with

Hi asker,

Some medicines are never safe during pregnancy because they have a proven high risk of miscarriage or serious risk to the developing baby.

But many more medicines are taken during pregnancy even if they can carry risk to the pregnant person or the baby. That's because they help the person using them so much, that the risk of not taking them is higher. They may modify doses or monitor themselves or the baby more often. So no, she does not necessarily have to go cold turkey to carry to term.

Some sources for more information:

Medicine and Pregnancy: an Overview by the CDC (US site)

Medicines During Pregancy on MyAlberta (Canada site)

You specifically mention psychosis, so maybe your character takes antipsychotics. There has been a lot of fear that antipsychotics can cause birth defects/abnormalities or miscarriages, but more recently many people are encouraged to stay on them while pregnant.

I haven't read fully through these, but they should be informative:

Use of Antipsychotic Drugs During Pregnancy on NIH (US site)

Antipsychotics in Pregnancy and Breastfeeding on RC Psych (UK site)

Antipsychotic Use in Pregnancy on NIH (US site).

There is no BPD-specific medication, so I can't really specify anything else. Some amputees take medications, and some don't, so I can't specify there either. If you know what your character takes, you can google their specific medication types + pregnancy. People get pregnant all the time, so this is not an uncommon avenue of thought.

Either way, this varies depending on what your character specifically takes. But ultimately, there is no absolute requirement that she must go cold turkey to carry to term.

Hope this helps,

mod sparrow

Hi!

One issue she could experience as an amputee is related to prosthesis fitting - I'll assume that she uses them since you didn't mention her being a wheelchair user. During pregnancy she'd probably gain weight, which might mean she will need to visit her prosthetist to make sure it's comfortable for her to walk in. She might also experience more swelling in her residual limbs, which basically means the same thing - depending on how much changes her body goes through, she might have to make a few trips. This is especially true if she's an above the knee amputee rather than below.

Amputee Coalition has a page on pregnancy that you can check out, with some possible timelines that are currently recommended (especially helpful since it sounds like your story is set in modern times).

Hope this helps!

mod Sasza

Hello! I'm someone with diagnosed schizoaffective disorder in remission and BPD keeps getting thrown at as a possibility for a diagnosis for me, and medication for BPD can range from nothing to a combination of antidepressants and antipsychotics, antipsychotics being front line for any psychotic symptoms or disorder. I have had doctors plan with me as the antipsychotic I am on (vraylar) is unsafe for pregnancy however olanzapine is often considered safer. Generally for someone on heavy-duty medication there is a safer drug in the same class their doctor switches them to and closely monitors their progress and health from pregnancy to breastfeeding.

-Mod Bert

[shesnake]

24 hour time loops: not long enough to create or undo anything permanent, crazy-making but often still funny

365 day time loops: the most fucked up shit you could possibly imagine

[naamahdarling]

You know what? You know what I think?

I think that if we lived as we were meant to, in larger intimate ("extended family") groups and with more shared labor and time to do it (UBI NOW) people like me would not feel so useless and burdensome because there would be people around to help and to do what neurodivergent people can't while making valuable space for the neurodivergent to do what they ARE good at.

The way we live right now, all right, the way we live right now forces units of two adults to be able to do EVERYTHING or PAY to have someone come do it for them. I have to do the housework. I have to do it! But I am having to do a million different things and most of them I am not good at. I suck at them.

I wouldn't feel like shit, okay, if I had more than one other person around who was not a child and who could do the things I can't, like do the yard and cook and do repairs and basic maintenance; and someone else to split everything else that I like but is too much for me. It would free me to do what I am good at and enjoy. Cleaning, as in the sink and toilet, the windows, the blinds. Taking out trash. Folding, hanging, and sorting laundry.

But because all the shit I can do often relies on other shit being done first, and I can't do or have trouble doing those things, the shit I can do often can't be done. And even the shit I can do, I can't do ALL of it. So I can't keep up, and things get very bad.

We aren't meant to live like this. We are not meant to live like this.

That thought hurts so much because being able to flee the birth family is integral to survival for so many people. I'm so afraid that living in larger family groups would create more opportunities for, say, queer kids to be isolated, rejected, bullied, and abused. But if we gave people enough money to survive, and stopped considering children the property of their parents with no system in place to help them escape bad situations except a system that is often just as bad, just different.

I'm aware that communes and collectives aren't all that successful and are kind of a joke. I don't mean that. I mean a fundamental shift to multigenerational families where taking in "strays" (which my family did) is also normalized so people escaping abuse into existing households was accepted, with these families centered in maybe a couple of different larger residences so not everyone has to buy and maintain their own fucking washing machine and vacuum cleaner, and so people can benefit from large group meals that yield leftovers, and so child and elder care can also be centralized.

Then disabled people and the neurodivergent and sick and injured people, and pregnant people, and grieving people, would not have to either labor through all those stressors or consign themselves to living off an unlivable pittance or being put under legal guardianship.

I'm not saying anything new. People live like this in other parts of the world and maybe it sucks and I am wrong. But I'm just really mad right now because I can either do laundry or clean the sink but not both, and I really think we could improve society somewhat by making it so I did not have to choose one without sacrificing the other.

[retourpresdetoi]

hey mouthwashing analysts, do we maybe want to think a bit before comparing a full grown man, who is just heavily disabled, to a baby? like a literal infant? especially when there's a stronger metaphorical/psychological/symbolic avatar for the baby and pregnancy already present within the narrative? (multiple even!)

[the-tortured-fangirl-department]

If I was Apollos Baby Mama that had to go trough nine months of pregnancy and birth just to find out that Apollo can do it himself I would be FUCKING PISSED

[beetledee0]

wow I love that this niche interest of mine is gaining traction, back when I found it I only had one friend I could talk to about it and even they werent super interested. I'm glad to see this piece of media be enjoyed as I enjoy it and the creators gaining the mass support they earned <-sentences spoken mere hours before disaster

[clione16]

idk maybe it just me but it irks me when people say that curly deserves his disability as "payment" for being an enabler

[sentient-cloud]

Also I think you can not and should not ever use body horror to refer to things that can and do happen to real human beings.

[bea-l-zebul]

Wanna know what really grinds my gears?

When I, a physically disabled woman, talk about the intersections of being both disabled and a woman, and other, able bodied women decide that it’s perfectly fucking fine to shut me down.

I have MS if you didn’t know. Recently studies have come out about scientists wanting to explore certain hormones in pregnancy and why they cause (some) women with MS to go into remission.

All of these people were talking about a potential “breakthrough”, and while that is a possibility, I live in a country that just took away reproductive rights from women.

So forgive me if I’m not ecstatic about scientists yet-a-fucking-gain talking about using pregnancy to treat a condition that’s more common in woman.

Forgive me for pointing out the downsides.

Like seriously, someone in Australia had the fucking gall to tell me to “stop freaking out about it because you don’t live in Nazi Germany, yet”

Really Becky, cause from what I can tell the USA is one fascist dictator getting into office away from turning into the reincarnation of it. And since you used “yet” you seem to recognize that, but don’t want to acknowledge that a positive for you is a negative for other fucking women in the same situation.

I don’t want my insurance company to turn around and refuse to cover my Ocrevus because they decided that me getting knocked up is the cheaper option than covering the meds that cost approx. 69k dollars out of pocket.

I don’t want to be forced to become a handmaiden to replenish ACB’s “domestic supply of infants”

I want to be child free, and I want it to become unacceptable for any scientist or doctor to recommend fucking pregnancy as a treatment,

…but, ya know, I’m just crazy for pointing out the potential negatives should the recommendations from further studies be “get knocked up, it’s the only way�� when a lot of women don’t even have a right to bodily autonomy anymore.

[briarpatch-kids]

One of my IRL friends is pregnant and dealing with clinical level fatigue for the first time and God, I forgot how frustrating it is. Poor woman is bored to tears.

[displayheartcode]

“I like your pirate’s leg,” I say in a truly horrific attempt to take the attention off me. “I-I meant—your costume. Not just your leg, obviously. The whole thing,” I say, floundering.

“Oh, well, good. I was worried you only wanted me for my leg for a second,” he teases.

out on a limb by hannah bonam-young

[kainekillinggod]

there's this one fuckn post on here and I forget what exactly they say but it's basically like " Pregnancy isn't body horror and should be celebrated and shown! (Specifically talking about trans men and transmasc pregnancy)" Which okay yeah we should shame people (anyone of any gender ever!) for being pregnant and wanting to be, but you also have to understand that for a lot of people **IT IS BODY HORROR** !!!!

Theres people with tokophobia, OCD, PTSD, depression, bipolar, psychosis, BPD, autism, ect. That pregnancy is literally! Terrifying!! For numbers of reasons!

Theres people who are physically disabled too who have a genuine fear of it bc pregnancy can literally rip you apart, causing more pain and shit!

Idk what I'm going on about right now but like. I gotta get this out.

Stop shaming people for being pregnant, stop shaming people for being terrified of pregnancy

Telling people that their legitimate fears aren't real or are "evil" is kinda messed

[wa-royal-tea]

I'm scared.

[jelliibeanz]

you would think after watching a dog momma give birth to 10 little babies that ii would have had some philosophical revolution, like a deeper understanding on motherhood and life and death.

but all im thinking about is puppies lol

here's momma :)

[a-queer-crip-writes]

I still think about my last pregnancy a lot.

They’d be at primary school now

if they had survived to become a person.

It’s funny how I picture the heartbreak

nearly as much as the other stuff.

I pictured shaking with exhaustion

when they were a tiny baby

and having cracked nipples from breastfeeding

and worrying about painkillers in the breast milk.

Later, I pictured trying to carry them up the stairs on my chairlift,

juggling them squirming in one arm as I kept the lever down to move,

that horrible, ever-present terror of dropping them,

that bit of my brain that hates me

supplying the sound of

soft toddler bones cracking on carpeted stairs,

Juggling my crutches with their pushchair on good days;

trying to manage carrying them in my lap

while propelling my wheelchair on bad ones.

Would they have been resentful that I couldn’t

run around with them as much

as I wanted to?

Of days I had to lie in bed shuddering for hours

after I crawled to the toilet

or had to wait for their dad to get home for proper food

because my hands were shaking too much

to be safe with anything not microwaveable?

Would I have simply been Mummy

Or tried out a variety of ungendered terms

until we found one that worked for us?

Would their nonbinary parent

suddenly have become a terrible

embarrassment to them

at some point?

Or would it have been so obvious and

central to their little world that

screaming terfs would have seemed

beyond nonsensical to them?

Now I picture

phone calls from their school

on days when my other half is out on audit

and I can’t get out of bed without vomiting in pain.

Trying to call them a taxi

lying down with my eyes shut and

nothing coming out

but a jumble of unprocessed word salad.

Fighting for accommodations

we technically won last term

and yet nothing seems to have changed.

It would have been horrendously hard,

and I still very much wish it had happened