How do you tell that someone is expectant? The answer may be obvious. There are signs and more signs. There are changes in appearance and even psychological changes. Some of these are so obvious that a mother can detect a daughter’s pregnancy even from space.
But for men, it is an entirely different game as most men simply cannot tell if a woman is pregnant. The problem is so widespread that medical experts are putting the number to close to 99% of all men.
For most men, the only way to tell if a woman is expectant is when they deliver. Anything else does not work, unless it is a scientific pregnancy test. This is the case for young men, old men, friends, boyfriends, just friends, and even spouses.
When it comes to pregnancies, men are simply clueless.
There are some aspects of it that make it harder for men to identify an expectant woman. “Imagine congratulating someone that they are pregnant when they are not? That would mark the beginning of the Third World War. The risk is just too much and you do not want to get involved.”
For others, it is just a matter of not being able to interpret signs. Big signs, medium signs, subtle signs, mixed signs – you know that all those do not work in men. Unless we are talking of road signs, men do not understand most signs and that is why your attempt to show some signs that you are interested has gone unnoticed. It is a gender problem.
This is a problem that some husbands have paid dearly for. We have reported cases of husbands going to work in the morning and reporting back home in the evening to find a baby who they did not know was coming. Another one was telling people that the wife was probably suffering from malaria and that is why they were in the maternity ward. Clueless gender.
The problem is not limited to lay men. Even male medical experts sometimes miss the signs. There have been cases where a personal doctor attended to an expectant woman for nine months without realizing that the woman was pregnant. The doctor kept giving medication and advice for weight loss and keeping fit, until one day when the patient complained of severe pain and a nearby female nurse intervened by sending her to the maternity ward.
What is the solution to this problem? Nothing so far. Researchers think that of pregnancies could last for a longer period, something like three years, men would become better at spotting them. For now, we will simply settle for either test or wait for the delivery.
To make it worse, even many men appear to be pregnant, raising the confusion even further.