This really pisses me off.
The way this is framed from the very start is in a way which is deeply anti-women.
It puts forward the idea that fear of childbirth is a modern thing, that women who are being silly, stupid, weak and snowflakey have suddenly started doing because of the internet. And by implication they should be tough like women in the past.
A doctor called Dr. Louis Victor Marcé wrote the following regarding fears of mothers to be in a book:
“If they are giving birth for the first time, waiting for unknown pain worries them beyond all measure and they are plunged into an indescribable state of anxiety. If they are already mothers, they are terrified by the memory of the past and the prospect of the future; they are privately convinced that they are going to die from the ordeal which awaits them”.
Marcé added that “this idea becomes absolutely fixed in their heads and triggers a melancholy frame of mind which takes over all their thoughts”
The year it was written?
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It is almost identical to the modern day (and very recently recognised) definition and condition of tokophobia.
The point being that woman have been scared of childbirth forever and its a natural thing. Because women die and go through enormous pain and life changing injuries as the result of childbirth. And frankly thats not weird or stupid to fear that. Its bloody normal!!!
Yes that it is much less likely than in the past to die, but birth injuries are still common - its one of the most dangerous days in a women's life when you look at the statistics.
Naturally women are going to be concerned about that. Women cope with anxiety and stress in different ways. Some women won't have any anxiety, but by the same token others will naturally be more prone to anxiety regardless of what they are told / not told. Cos thats how people are!
Also the idea that sharing stories on the internet is somehow scarer than women talking to each other in person or a culture of silence also makes my mind boggle. Why is it any different??? There have always been 'scaremongering stories' around and there has always been deep ignorance about childbirth.
It doesn't take into consideration how different personalities handle information either. For some, knowing a lot and being able to manage their anxiety through information helps, for others it has the exact opposite effect. One thing that has been found in studies, to contribute to post traumatic stress from childbirth (which leads to anxiety in a future pregnancy), has been women having too idealistic expectations of childbirth which don't match their experience. In other words, women who don't have anxiety, read Ina Gaskin and go in thinking they can breathe out a baby through positive mental attitude and they end up with forceps or a EMCS are particularly at risk of developing child birth fear in future pregnancies!!!!!
So women can't win, whatever they do really.
In addition to this, we have modern day concerns and pressures. Things like wards being understaffed, poor previous birth experiences, issues over consent, highly medicalised births in a strange setting, poor communication, having babies later and having more complex pregnancies than in the past because of health issues like obesity. This are stress points that don't necessarily fit with women's instincts and and might be creating modern day issues which interfere with hormone production and the physical birthing process.
Honestly, 'discussion points' like this are just about 'putting women in their place'. They generally don't increase understanding, precisely because they frame it as an open question with two opinions - with the opening starting point being against women, leaving it for women to 'prove' the opposite. They barely touch the touch from a scientific / historical point of view which carefully examines the nature of birth fear.
The entire thing ends up, perversly creating a scenario which legitimises opinions which think women who have child birth fears are weak or stupid or hysterical merely by being a discussion where opinions are more important than anything else.
/Rant over.