So although the concern for pregnant women is all very well and good, that concern appears to be misplaced. Photo / Getty Images
So although the concern for pregnant women is all very well and good, that concern appears to be misplaced. Photo / Getty Images
Grethe Andersen was travelling from Wellington to Auckland with a group of friends when the 24-year-old was asked by a Jetstar flight attendant if she was pregnant.
She wasn't.
When a woman is asked if she is pregnant and she is not, that can only mean one thing: that her stomach is so fat and round, a casual observer assumes she is pregnant.
It's a very delicate question to ask of a woman.
Some women - like me - take it in their stride. I was once asked by a woman I was chatting to at the hairdresser's whether I was going to run the marathon I was training for "after the baby or during my pregnancy".
I just smiled and said "afterwards" and although I cringed inside, I knew the question didn't come from malice.
I hadn't been following the nutrition plan my coach had recommended. I was carrying too much weight. It was an easy mistake for a stranger to make.
Not that I would ever ask that question of another woman unless, perhaps, I could see the baby's head crowning. Then, I think that would be a reasonable question to ask.
If you are just making conversation, however, why on Earth would you ask a question that could lead to a social gaffe of monumental proportions?
What if the woman had recently miscarried? What if the woman had a swollen abdomen because of cancer?
What if she was just plain fat and really, really depressed and unhappy about the fact? Not everybody can laugh it off.
But when you're in a position of being responsible for other people's health and safety, it's a question you sometimes have to ask.
A caller to my radio show told me that when he was running a roller-coaster at a fun park, a woman and her partner approached him clutching tickets for the ride.
The woman, he said, was very slim - small boobs, small hips and long legs - but her tummy was high and round. There were signs everywhere warning pregnant women that they shouldn't take the ride, but he said people don't always read signs.
He waged an internal battle with himself and decided he would have to take the risk. He said he couldn't live with himself if he let her on the ride and something happened.
So he asked the question, she told him she wasn't pregnant, they went on the ride and then marched off to the manager's office to complain about him.
Luckily, his boss was a sensible man and the man wasn't penalised for doing his job, but he said he had a certain amount of sympathy for the Jetstar attendant.
Jetstar has apologised to Andersen and offered her a $100 voucher, but the internet trolls have come out in full force.
Grethe Andersen was travelling with a group of friends when asked by a Jetstar flight attendant if she was pregnant. Photo / Supplied
TVNZ ended up taking down the story from its Facebook page because of the nasty comments Andersen was getting, presumably from fit, toned, healthy men and women with abs of steel.
Less time whingeing and moaning to the media, more time on the treadmill seemed to be the general tenor of the comments.
Some sanctimonious souls took the moral high ground and said that Jetstar was only concerned for the safety of passengers.
Leaving aside the fact Andersen doesn't look in any way, shape or form seven months pregnant, if airlines are concerned about the safety of their passengers, why don't they apply that concern across the board and not just to women who are potentially pregnant?
After all, when it comes to medical emergencies, pregnant women aren't the problem. The elderly and those with heart conditions are.
I couldn't find any local stats, but according to the New England Journal of Medicine, in an article published two years ago, inflight medical emergencies occur in about 1 in every 604 flights.
And only 11 of the 11,920 emergencies involved women in late pregnancy who were in labour.
The most common were, among others, light headedness or fainting (37.4 per cent); respiratory problems (12.1 per cent); and cardiac symptoms (7.7 per cent).
Obstetrical or gynaecological symptoms accounted for just 0.5 per cent of inflight emergencies.
Virgin Atlantic provided figures that showed of 1132 inflight emergencies, the most common were cardiac incidents, neurological problems and food poisoning.
So although the concern for pregnant women is all very well and good, that concern appears to be misplaced.
Surely airlines should be on the lookout for prime cardiac candidates.
