Anecdotal data is that data that you collect from simply observing things in day to day life. In the medical field, this can lead to some interesting and useless practices. For example, how do you remove a clog from a feeding tube? Many nurses will tell you that you pour soda down it, and this was standard practice for years. Why? It seemed to make sense. If you have a clog, use something acidic (like soda) to break it up. However, when research was later done to see if this practice worked, we discovered that pouring soda down feeding tubes actually led to more clogs, not less. This is why the scientific method is important, and why without the scientific method we often end up with old wives' tales.
The reason why I have been thinking of anecdotal data is because I have been experiencing weird changes in my pregnancy symptoms. The doctor told me on Monday that I no longer had to take my tocolytic (which was supposed to keep me from contracting/cramping), and by the next morning my cramping, which had been occurring about 8-10 hours each day, disappeared. That is the opposite of what was supposed to happen. I assumed that since I was cramping 8-10 hours a day on the medication that I would go into labor quickly once I stopped taking the medicine. This made no sense! So I started to investigate all of the possible causes of my labor symptoms, mostly to try to figure out how to encourage labor.
This brought me to notice something over the last several days, which would fall under anecdotal data. The closest correlation that I can come up with to my cramping or not is if I have blogged about cramping or not. That is to say, if I blog that I am cramping, I inevitably feel much better the next morning. If I blog that I am not cramping, I seem to get the worst cramps of my pregnancy shortly thereafter. As a joke, I shared this with Keith this morning. As he put it, while these events seem to be correlated, he highly doubts that my blogging is causal. Since I do not believe that my blogging has magical powers, I agreed with him. It was humorous, however, to discuss (this is the type of conversations that two scientists sometimes have at home...at least when those scientists are Keith and me).
Because I was not convinced that my blog was somehow acting like a voodoo doll, I thought I would keep on mulling this around in my head to try to come up with a more reasonable explanation. Thankfully, I did not fall for the first correlation that I discovered, as I came up with a more reasonable explanation this evening. Bed rest makes my cramping symptoms increase. I know it sounds counterintuitive, but I spent all day Tuesday and Wednesday on my feet and felt great. I spent most of today sitting down, trying to finish some craft projects for the baby and started cramping again. Could it be that our main intervention to preventing pre-term labor was actually increasing my symptoms? I believe this to be the case. It would explain why, after nearly 5 weeks of spending most of my time in bed or on the couch I was experiencing the worst pain of my pregnancy. And it would explain why my symptoms disappeared when I was released to do normal activity. It would also explain why I didn't believe my symptoms to be too bad between 28 and 32 weeks, when I had mild cramping, but why my pre-term labor seemed to get worse upon entering the hospital. I plan to test this hypothesis over the next several days (or until Gwen is born, which hopefully is not several days from now) by observing symptoms after activity and rest. But I think that I am onto something...or at least more of something than when my major hypothesis was that my blog was the culprit.
The reason why I have been thinking of anecdotal data is because I have been experiencing weird changes in my pregnancy symptoms. The doctor told me on Monday that I no longer had to take my tocolytic (which was supposed to keep me from contracting/cramping), and by the next morning my cramping, which had been occurring about 8-10 hours each day, disappeared. That is the opposite of what was supposed to happen. I assumed that since I was cramping 8-10 hours a day on the medication that I would go into labor quickly once I stopped taking the medicine. This made no sense! So I started to investigate all of the possible causes of my labor symptoms, mostly to try to figure out how to encourage labor.
This brought me to notice something over the last several days, which would fall under anecdotal data. The closest correlation that I can come up with to my cramping or not is if I have blogged about cramping or not. That is to say, if I blog that I am cramping, I inevitably feel much better the next morning. If I blog that I am not cramping, I seem to get the worst cramps of my pregnancy shortly thereafter. As a joke, I shared this with Keith this morning. As he put it, while these events seem to be correlated, he highly doubts that my blogging is causal. Since I do not believe that my blogging has magical powers, I agreed with him. It was humorous, however, to discuss (this is the type of conversations that two scientists sometimes have at home...at least when those scientists are Keith and me).
Because I was not convinced that my blog was somehow acting like a voodoo doll, I thought I would keep on mulling this around in my head to try to come up with a more reasonable explanation. Thankfully, I did not fall for the first correlation that I discovered, as I came up with a more reasonable explanation this evening. Bed rest makes my cramping symptoms increase. I know it sounds counterintuitive, but I spent all day Tuesday and Wednesday on my feet and felt great. I spent most of today sitting down, trying to finish some craft projects for the baby and started cramping again. Could it be that our main intervention to preventing pre-term labor was actually increasing my symptoms? I believe this to be the case. It would explain why, after nearly 5 weeks of spending most of my time in bed or on the couch I was experiencing the worst pain of my pregnancy. And it would explain why my symptoms disappeared when I was released to do normal activity. It would also explain why I didn't believe my symptoms to be too bad between 28 and 32 weeks, when I had mild cramping, but why my pre-term labor seemed to get worse upon entering the hospital. I plan to test this hypothesis over the next several days (or until Gwen is born, which hopefully is not several days from now) by observing symptoms after activity and rest. But I think that I am onto something...or at least more of something than when my major hypothesis was that my blog was the culprit.
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