Pregnant women are often told, especially older people, that in pregnancy you should not cross your legs, neither in Indian position, nor crossing one over the other.
The reasons they explain are varied and worthy of study, but so different from each other that in the end one no longer knows if they can cross them or not.
Let's look at some of these tips or warnings:
• In pregnancy you can not cross your legs because in doing so you press the legs of the fetus and when it is born it will have them crooked. Babies are floating in a liquid medium and, except in the final phase of pregnancy, they usually have plenty of space, so it is difficult to "squeeze" them.
In the last trimester, being larger, it is easier to disturb them according to what positions and one might still think that there is a likelihood of compression of the baby, but usually the same size of the belly makes many women find it difficult to cross their legs and Even if they did, the pressure needed to bend a baby's legs (if they can be folded from the outside) should be much higher than that exerted by the mother's cross-leg.
By the way, has anyone ever seen a baby with crooked legs?
• In pregnancy you cannot cross your legs because otherwise your child will come with laces of cord around the neck.
Many children have a twist (or more than one) around their neck during pregnancy. The cause is usually that the umbilical cord is too long or that there is an excess of amniotic fluid and therefore free space for the fetus to move.
I don't know, you might think that crossing one's legs causes the cord to cross as well.
• In pregnancy you can not cross the legs because otherwise your child will be born big-eared.
Incredible (but true) that such a phrase comes out of a person's mouth (understanding person as a rational animated being, male or female).
Maybe in Dumbo, the elephant mom was crossing her legs while pregnant. I don't see another explanation.
• In pregnancy you cannot cross your legs because you cut your baby's breath.
Perhaps it occurred to someone at some point that if a pregnant woman crossed her legs, she closed the only hole through which the baby could get air to breathe.
As you all know, babies do not breathe inside the belly as they are floating in amniotic fluid. Nor does air enter them anywhere, as they are inside the amniotic bag, the cervix is closed and the mucous plug makes a safety closure. That is, the dangerous thing would really be for air to enter.
• In pregnancy you cannot cross your legs because you hinder their blood circulation.
Finally we come to one that is true (although almost nobody explains). It is not that they cannot cross, it is that according to which mothers and according to what moments of pregnancy it is not recommended.
As the uterus grows, it relies more and more on the English, where arteries and veins pass that supply and collect blood in the legs.
If a woman crosses her legs or sits in the Indian position, the blood vessels are pressured making circulation difficult.
In women who have fluid retention problems at the level of lower extremities, it is recommended not to cross them (although normally the same mother is aware of the tingling that is not in the ideal position).
Summarizing: Yes you can cross your legs during pregnancy unless a woman is having circulation problems and the weight of the uterus on the English is such that it compresses the arteries and veins.
