“What’s the worst part of birth?”
I just sat, staring at my screen saddened, angry, frustrated, and annoyed.
The internet has done some wonderful things for the world, allowing us to connect with people we have never met or with whom we lost touch long ago. It has also done some terrible things, and I witnessed one of those things this week.
Mamas, stay away from mom forums. They’re one of the worst parts of the internet. I know that sounds pretty hyperbolic, but it’s what I’ve found to be all too true.
I usually stay far, far away from the general mom forums, opting instead to focus on the smaller, informative communities I’ve found and trust (and even those have a lot of issues). But I got an alert from one of my pregnancy apps about a new forum post, and against my better judgement, I clicked.
The above question received nearly 1000 responses most of which were mamas sharing how terrible, excruciating, painful, and miserable birth is. But the part that made me so sad was to see all the first time mamas commenting things like, “I’m 32 weeks, and now I’m even more terrified to give birth” or “just put me under and take the baby out. I don’t want to do it.” I didn’t make it through all the responses, but as I scrolled through, I could count on one hand the number of responses I saw that said, “if you think it’ll be bad, it’ll be bad” or “mind over matter….it’s a temporary discomfort for the most empowering experience.”
We live in a culture that portrays birth as a scary, unbearably painful, insurmountable burden women have to suffer through in an overly medicalized, impersonal setting. Pop culture, media, and posts like this (one that was highlighted and recommended by this app) perpetuate this false narrative.
But what if we flipped the script? What if instead of the doom-and-gloom births we see in movies and on TV where a woman’s water randomly breaks, she screams all the way to the hospital, gets drugged up, and gets told they “have to get the baby out now” and is rushed off to an emergency c-section, what if we talk about the beauty of birth? What if we focus on the reality that in an overwhelming majority of births, medical intervention is completely unnecessary? What if we focus on how a woman’s body is made for growing and birthing a baby? What if we focus on the raw power and determination an uninterrupted laboring mother has? What if we focus on the empowerment birth can bring a woman? What if we focus on the beauty of birthing not only a baby, but also a new mother in the very same moment? What if we focus on the good parts of birth?
Don’t misunderstand my point – I am not saying there aren’t challenging, trying, and painful parts of labor and birthing. I’m also not at all saying no birth needs medical intervention. Neither of these things are true at all. Birth is HARD, but birth is beautiful. Birth can have complications, but the majority do not.
If we continue instilling fear rather than hope, doubt rather than confidence, negativity instead of positivity, where does that get us? To live in fear is to not live fully. To shy away from challenge is to miss out on the most rewarding parts of the experience.
So, mama, let me ask – what’s the best part of labor?
Well said!