Not all births are ‘beautiful’ is the resounding message from Australian parenting blogger Stevie from MyTribeofSix.
Stevie has four children, and her youngest daughter, born in November last year, was delivered in a way that left her in immense pain and unable to hold her newborn.
“As magic and amazing as childbirth is, it isn’t always a good experience,” she wrote on Instagram at the end of last year, in a post that’s now going viral.
“I couldn’t even hold her or look at her after she was born – not straight away. Not because of her, but because of me, what I just went through and the pain I was still in.”
It’s a story of raw honesty, when many birthing accounts can – as Stevie explains – add pressure to an already difficult situation.
The NSW mum behind My Tribe of Six said she felt “judged” for asking for an epidural, and that the forced natural birth left her “paralysed” with pain and feeling emotionally unattached.
“There’s all this pressure on how amazing it should be and what we should feel afterwards,” she wrote.
“It wasn’t positive at all. I didnt feel encouraged, I felt judged and forced into a birth I didn’t want and that could have been avoided.”
Top Comments
The thing that worries me is that while there certainly are amazing midwives, there are also many concerning stories like this. Based on my own experience, and probably at least half of my close friends’ experiences, there are also a significant proportion of not-amazing midwives who don’t adequately listen to or respect their patients. I experienced both, and the difference is glaring. Some are dismissive, some insist they know best without listening properly and some are outright bullies (and i’m not doubting their professional knowledge, but there should be more to adequately supporting a birthing mother than just getting the baby here safely). I know so many of them must be frustrated by inadequate resources or systems, or by problematic doctors, and maybe that often comes through in work. Whatever the reason, I hope it will change. There are a lot of mothers who experience more trauma than they should have.
Well said, I completely agree!