I do think most people are inherently good and have good intentions. I especially think when you have been bereaved, there is a real need to talk about it and there is often a real desperation to try and prevent other people from experiencing this same unbearable situation. If you were the family whose baby who had died because of forceps, you might feel a need to make sure other pregnant women know absolutely that this can happen. I know why too because generally, a discussion around interventions such as forceps revolves around reassuring a woman that they will be fine and not to worry. It's such a terribly fine balance. I think while the lady on the bus really hadn't picked an appropriate audience, I couldn't judge her for it.
I do think there is a real need to address how we educate about childbirth in this country and how we approach neonatal mortality too.
I am a bit of a broken record on this but I have noticed more and more that "I don't want to hear horror stories about peoples births" means "I don't want to hear about anything other than textbook deliveries". I was chatting to a friend's wife recently (pregnant) and she asked about when I gave birth and I said "oh I had two caesareans". She shut me down immediately with "oh God no, I hate those horror stories, don't tell me". Now this is a real problem. Partly because I take great offence at two of the most important days of my life being referred to as 'horror stories'. I didn't give birth to Freddy Krueger ffs (though you could be forgiven for making that mistake some days when you see what ds is capable of). It's a simple fact. I had two emcs. If you want to know, they were brilliant. The second was the most life-affirming and positive experience I've ever had. A caesarean, forceps, ventouse (had both of those too btw), induction etc, are all exceedingly common and are very useful interventions, sometimes lifesaving. However, we've reached a strange juncture where they're immediately dismissed as 'horror stories'. I have a friend last year who was pregnant and said 'tell me nothing of cs, I won't be having one'. Her baby was delivered by cs and she ended up traumatised. NOT because the cs was traumatic but because she had absolutely built it up to be a failure or a worst case scenario and she admits readily that she could so easily have avoided feeling so much of a failure by engaging with reality instead of fantasy (her words btw).
Of course pregnant women shouldn't be regaled with terrible tales of exaggeration and unnecessary, inaccurate detail designed to excite all sorts of negative emotions (that's what soap operas are for apparently), of course natural delivery and listening to our bodies and trust them should be encouraged, but we do have an increasing problem. I see it with the women I support post natally who have had non-textbook deliveries. So many times I hear them say "I wish I'd known, I wish I'd been more open to what could happen". Rarely are the deliveries themselves traumatic. They were preconceived as 'horror stories' though.
I think there must be a balance in there somewhere.
I know I'm wittering again. I do that a lot but I do wonder if there isn't some need to challenge the narrative around childbirth in general.