Difference between revisions of "Pregnancy & Childbirth on Pern"

Latest revision as of 02:25, 9 April 2024

Conception can occur in women from menarche to menopause.

Initial Signs and Symptoms of Pregnancy

Note: These signs and symptoms vary with each expectant mother. If a pregnancy is suspected, a trained Healer should examine the woman. Any section marked 'OOC' is for informational purposes only and is highly unlikely that Pernese healers would know this.

Engorgement And Soreness Of The Breasts: Breasts may become enlarged and very tender to the touch early in the woman's pregnancy (in some cases, this also occurs during menstruation) due to increased blood flow and hormones, as the breasts prepare themselves for nursing.

Easy Fatigue: Even simple, daily chores may tire the expectant mother. She may tire easily and sleep for longer periods.

Morning Sickness: Morning sickness may be experienced as early two sevendays after conception. Unlike its title implies morning sickness may occur at any time of the day or night. If the sickness is severe, a healer may consider administering goldenseal.

Under most circumstances, morning sickness ceases to occur after the second month. However, it is not uncommon to experience morning sickness throughout the entire duration of her pregnancy. An administration of diluted lavender in hot water as an occasional drink, may aid the expectant mother.

Missed Menstrual Cycle: The woman should wait until she's missed at least two periods before assuming she's pregnant -- it's not uncommon for a woman, especially a dragon rider, to miss a period once in a while.

Frequent Urination: The woman may feel the need to urinate often.

Anxiety: Although anxiety is a common symptom, it varies depending on the individual.

Dark Discoloration of the Nipples: The disc-shaped area around the woman's nipples (areola) may become unusually dark

Pregnancy & Visiting the Dolphins

Dolphins, once known as shipfish, are one of Pern's biggest assets to medicine, despite not actually following under the purview of the Healercraft. Using the special sense that enables them to "see" underwater, dolphins are capable of detecting abnormalities in the human body, such as tumors and a woman's pregnancy. Dolphins are aided in this by human dolphineers who specialize in working with dolphins to diagnose medical problems.

However, dolphins are not the only way of detecting pregnancy. In fact, consultation of a dolphin is comparatively rare, considering the fact that only a coastal Hall, Hold, or Weyr could possibly have access to a pod. Since /between/ is the preferred method of abortion on Pern, taking a woman suspected to be pregnant /between/ just to visit the dolphins to confirm pregnancy would not be done, as that could quite possibly trigger an abortion and the visit to the dolphins would be moot. Short flights over land might be acceptable, especially if the woman resides within a few miles of the sea, but for inland women, access to dolphin diagnosis would be almost impossible. Dolphin detection is also not entirely accurate, especially not initially, and a trained Healer can typically confirm pregnancy within close proximity of the earliest time a dolphin could detect it.

So when is a dolphin likely to diagnose a woman's pregnancy? If the woman lives in a coastal Hold, Hall, or Weyr which has a nearby dolphin pod. If she lives anywhere else, a Healer is the way to have a pregnancy diagnosed. Otherwise, the /betweening/ to visit the dolphins would probably trigger an abortion of the baby. For this reason, visiting the dolphins is not a common course of action.

Pregnancy Complications

If pregnancy is suspected, do not use Basil, Hissop, Hyssop, Rosemary, Sage, or any other herb listed as possibly complicating pregnancy. For riders, conceiving can be difficult as going between causes miscarriage in the early months. If a rider becomes pregnant she should be restricted from going between during months 1, 2, 5, and 6 of pregnancy. In months 1 and 2 this is due to the risk of aborting the fetus and months 5 and 6 due to the risk of bringing on premature labor. The last two months of pregnancy a woman should avoid any flights a-dragonback, as the risk of falling and injuring the child is at its greatest then. During the first four months she can, if duty and personal health allow, fly with the Queen's wing during Threadfall. If twins are suspected, the mother is to cease ALL rider activities, including any flights on her dragon. With Pern's low level of technology, twin births are considered extremely high risk, and there are good odds that one or both babies will not survive due to low birth weight, prematurity, or other complications.

Timewarped Pregnancy

Why does the Healer Hall list pregnancy as six months long? True Pernese pregnancy is ten months. Since this translates in our club to twenty calendar months (nearly two years), a timewarped version was developed so that a persona's pregnancy would only last one calendar year - six Pernese months. You do not have to use the timewarped pregnancy if you want to go for accuracy in your persona's pregnancy. Pregnancies must last at least this long. Pregnancy is 'timewarped' to ensure that the difference between real life and game time don't prevent people from pursuing this angle of their persona's lives. Instead of the usual Pernese 10-month pregnancy, the stages of pregnancy have been consolidated into a six-month period of development, so that it takes 6 Pern months (game months) for a persona to give birth to a baby

Can I have twins or a premature baby for my persona?

You can, within reason. Twin births tend to result in premature and/or low birth-weight babies even on modern Terra. It has only been in the last few decades of modern history on Terra that the odds of both twins surviving infancy have improved. On Pern, survival is rare for premature babies, so if you absolutely must use this storyline, please be prepared to write it accurately with all the risks of such a birth (deafness, blindness, retardation, or other birth defects). With Pern's low level of technology, twin births are considered extremely high risk, and there are good odds that one or both babies will not survive due to low birth weight, prematurity, or other complications. Triplets would not survive at all.

Stages of Labor

The stages of labor and descriptions

Baby Care and Development

Infant and Child Development