Brought down to earth with a bump

Published on Friday 25 March 2005 01:25

IT IS the rumour no well dressed expectant mother could afford to ignore: Harvey Nichols gives £500 gift vouchers to pregnant women who go into labour while shopping in the store.

As the news spread like wildfire through the nation’s ante natal classes and GP surgeries, heavily pregnant women began visiting the company’s Edinburgh store.

They were seen by shop assistants loitering around the floors with no apparent intention of buying the designer goods on offer, waiting for their waters to break. Security guards told managers they had been asked by women how they secure the complementary present.

But the last straw came when women already in the early stages of labour called the store from their mobile phones on the way to the maternity ward to ask if the rumour was true.

Now Harvey Nichols has been forced to publicly deny the "urban myth" amid concern at the number of women apparently intent on giving birth in their St Andrew Square shop.

Last night a spokesman for the company tried to pour cold water on the rumours. "We have first-aiders on site but they are not trained in childbirth and therefore this rumour is a concern to us.

"It really is a worry because we have even had a bizarre phonecall from one woman as she was lying in the back of a car on the way to hospital asking about the vouchers.

"It is a dangerous rumour because you really should have a midwife with you when you go into labour."

Fiona Kinnaird, Harvey Nichols’ sales manager, said she and her colleagues had been asked if the rumour was true.

"There was an occasion just before Christmas when I watched an expectant mother loiter around the store to the point I thought she was going to shoplift.

"Just before I approached her she came up to me and asked if it was true that pregnant mothers received 500 gift vouchers if they went into labour in the shop. I wasn’t sure so I told her to call head office. Since then I have noticed other heavily pregnant mothers-to-be hanging around the store."

Harvey Nichols’ spokesman said the company was now in a difficult position: it did not want to encourage pregnant women to give birth in the store and yet it would not want to be stingy in the unlikely event that a mother did start to give birth in store.

"If a woman does go into labour we would consider giving her some vouchers if her intentions were not for it to deliberately happen in our store," he said.

Suggestions that the "urban myth" might not be such a myth after all are backed up by the comments of other Scottish stores.

Mothercare and Marks and Spencers said although they didn’t have a policy on gifts for mothers going into labour it was up to the discretion of individual branch managers if they wanted to give a present of baby clothes and goods.

An expectant mother has yet to give birth in Harvey Nichols but it happened once in Mothercare’s Princes Street store in Edinburgh. The woman’s waters broke and she called her husband, who told her to drive to the hospital herself. The store sent flowers and teddies to the hospital following the incident.

Kerry Cooper, an antenatal teacher with the National Childbirth Trust, said she heard the Harvey Nichols rumour being talked about in one of her classes earlier this week.

"I heard one prospective mother in my antenatal class telling the others that pregnant woman get vouchers if their waters break while they are in Harvey Nichols. They were all laughing and talking about it.

"It was the first time I had heard about Harvey Nichols doing it but I have also heard that Marks and Spencers did it although I never knew if it was true or not."

However, she added that it was not a problem for a woman’s waters to break in a shop because there was still plenty of time to get to hospital before going fully into labour."

Sandra Getty, 34, from Glasgow, who is expecting her first child on 7 April, said she was tempted to go round the stores in a bid to pick up her free gift.

"I’ve heard you get a present at Marks and Spencers and also Mothercare, imagine what you could buy with the 500 Harvey Nichols vouchers?

"I think it is a great idea and really fun and I would seriously consider going along around the time when I’m due."

But Patricia Purton, director of the Royal College Of Midwives said she thought it could only be first-time expectant mothers who were considering such action, blissfully unaware of the "unpleasant surprise" of labour that was awaiting them.

"I think it is just delightful that stores offer baby packs to expecting mothers. I heard that if a lady’s waters broke in Marks & Spencer she would receive a starter pack.

"However, although I know shopping is the new religion I think it is also a stressful activity and pregnant ladies would be much better at home relaxing than loitering around in busy stores.

"If their waters are breaking in a shop then there is the opportunity for infection so I would advocate that they stay at home and prepare for the birth instead.

"The vision of hundreds of women loitering around Harvey Nichols is wonderful to me but if a woman was to go into labour what they need is for the staff to give supportive, sensitive care rather than gifts."

The fictional urban tale - no sign of disappearing into the cultural abyss

URBAN myths, in all their forms, show no sign of going away - they pop up and are reinvented even as quickly as people discount them.

The locations may alter but there are recurring themes such as love, revenge, weddings and swimming pools.

One of the most popular worldwide myths at the moment, which comes loosely under the heading of "travel" concerns a British/American/Dutch family forced to camp next to a group of Hell’s Angels in Spain/France/California after they arrive late at night and find their usual campsite is fully booked.

A couple of Hell’s Angels are seen running from the family’s tent, but nothing is missing. But when they get home and develop their holiday photographs the family are horrified to see photographs of the Hell’s Angels posing with the family’s tooth brushes positioned up their bottoms.

One doing the rounds of the internet is a "revocation" of American independence by the British Crown, containing such gems as "There is no such thing as ‘US English’. We’ll let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter ‘u’."

The myth would have it that the work was penned by John Cleese - but assiduous research by the US myth-busting website snopes.com has traced its original authorship to one of Alan Baxter of Rochester, England.

Swimming pools myths include the "warnings" passed from one worried swimmer to the next that to use the now defunct flumes at the Royal Commonwealth Pool in Edinburgh may be the last thing they do. The local myth goes that youths had crept in and hidden razor blades in the chutes meaning that potential users would be consequently cut to ribbons.

Tamer variations included the "fact" that friction from the flumes were capable of ripping off swimwear leaving those daring enough to use them naked.

Love and revenge has endless variations. Urban myth experts AS Mott, who published Urban Legends last year said that many infamous stories and tales have a tiny element of truth based on nuggets of information someone thinks they read about in a newspaper story.