AIBU - Positive Birth Company deleted my comment on instagram

[Basil2021]

Firstly I know there was some discussion recently about some posts the Positive Birth Company put on their Instagram about trans rights - this AIBU is nothing to do with that.

I used the PBC digital pack and thought it was great…until I gave birth. I wouldn’t say it was a total waste of time but it definitely set me up with massively unrealistic expectations, which I think contributed to (but did not solely cause) my PTSD and PND afterwards.

Anyway…on their Instagram feed a few days ago there was a post about how hypnobirthing enables you to ‘create’ an ‘empowering birth experience’. There were loads of comments underneath saying how helpful they found hypnobirthing etc. Fine. I just felt this post was a bit misleading, so I wrote a comment saying that I thought it was important for people to realise that it is impossible to ‘create’
a particular birth and that some births just were difficult. I wasn’t rude or anything like that, but I think it’s an important point to make.

Anyway lo and behold…my comment has been deleted. No engagement with it or anything like that.
I feel really cross! I wish I had never given them my money. Am I being a bit precious?

It's their ethos to only be positive about birth and is in keeping with their usual practice tbh.

They are asshats who lie to women. And they recently stated that birth it not a women centred experience.
No-one should be giving them any money.

YANBU but you are being naive in forgetting that the social media accounts of these (and every other) company and brand are all about marketing and so are carefully curated to show them in their best and most positive light. Yours won’t be the only piece of negative feedback that’s been deleted, however polite or constructive it was. Try leaving your feedback somewhere more neutral like Trustpilot too, it won’t stop your messages being deleted on the social media streams of the companies but at least it stands a chance of being seen by potential customers.

@BalladOfBarryAndFreda

YANBU but you are being naive in forgetting that the social media accounts of these (and every other) company and brand are all about marketing and so are carefully curated to show them in their best and most positive light. Yours won’t be the only piece of negative feedback that’s been deleted, however polite or constructive it was. Try leaving your feedback somewhere more neutral like Trustpilot too, it won’t stop your messages being deleted on the social media streams of the companies but at least it stands a chance of being seen by potential customers.

Sorry for the tense muddling there

You're right to be cross. It's good to try to empower women to feel positively about birth etc. but not to the extent that it can make you feel like you've somehow failed at giving birth.

I think you'd find this interesting:
longestshortesttime.com/episode-218-ina-mays-guide-completely-revised-and-updated/

I have no affiliation with the above. I used to really enjoy this podcast (no longer going) and remember listening to this episode. Will need to relisten.

They are idiots tbh.

I loved using the pack during the prep for my birth and it certainly made me feel better going in to it

On the day though, it was a bit of a waste because nothing went to plan and no amount of room spray or arm stroking would have worked

I really dislike the recent change and their comments about women. But yes, they only allow positive comments on any of their platforms

@BalladOfBarryAndFreda yes maybe I was being a bit naive! However I feel quite strongly if they are really just deleting comments from people who didn't find it so useful, then that's actually quite damaging.

I am recovered now thankfully, but I remember when I was feeling very low looking at all the comments and posts on their Instagram about how wonderful their births had been using hypnobirthing, and it made me feel like crap. Maybe actually other people had made similar comments to me, but I wasn't able to see them.

I'm not sure its very feminist.

Thanks @Entschuldigung I'll look at that link!

I don't like what they're about at all.

I didn’t use that company OP but I felt exactly the same. It would have never made any difference in the circumstances of my DSs birth and it absolutely contributed to the trauma I felt afterwards. The gentle sigh I got from the matron at my birth debrief when I explained this must mean it’s a common theme.

I see that they are essentially using the platform as a marketing tool but deleting comments like yours is irresponsible in my opinion.

I totally agree with you. I know at least three of my friends who have used hypnobirthing…and it just didn’t work for them. The company needs to be more understanding that no matter how much hypnobirthing you do, if your labour is difficult/traumatic - it’s not that you didn’t do hypnobirthing right, it’s the physical act of birth and medical needs take precedent.

Ii just used a hypnobirthing CD (back in old days) listen to it all the way through pregnancy and did find it really helped me stay calm and not panic

But CD cost me £10. I'm sure these people charge way more

I used the digital pack too, I was very anxious in pregnancy due to a complicated family history and I have to say the pack really did help me to feel calmer and better in the run up to birth.

My birth wasn’t great, everything I didn’t want to happen happened added to an overcrowded and understaffed hospital in the middle of the pandemic. It was a shitshow frankly. I feel like the hypnobirthing/ PBC stuff was a real double edged sword - on the one hand it did help me a few times during the birth to calm down and face some really scary/ horrible bits. On the other hand it definitely set up some unrealistic expectations about what would be possible - when the hospital doesn’t have a room or a bed for you and you’re labouring back to back in a corridor there’s not much use for fairy lights or room spray. I remember feeling so panicked and sad about the fairy lights! Like I was failing already because I didn’t have them - totally focusing on the wrong thing.

And that sense of failure definitely continued throughout - failure to have a vaginal birth, failure to get my skin to skin and ‘golden hour’, failure to breastfeed. It hurt massively and like you it really made it worse to keep seeing posts by people who had ‘got it right’ as it felt to me.

I still followed them though right up until the whole ‘birth is not a woman centred experience’ thing. They can fuck right off now and I’m sorry I ever gave them my money at all. Next time a man goes through a 3 day labour with a back to back baby, sepsis, EMCS, PPH and months of crippling postnatal depression due to their inability to breastfeed they can come back to me on that, but till then they can get to fuck.

They are utter swines who should be ashamed of themselves. They completely brainwashed me when I was pregnant with my first. I ended up with a totally opposite experience to what I had planned and envisaged, then with breastfeeding going horribly wrong I ended up with PTSD, severe PNA and PND. I didn't bond with DS for the first 4 months, and don't really have any memories of his first year the PNA and PND were so bad.

Bastards.

I think I was really lucky in that our local community midwives offer hypnobirthing, I think the course was only about £50;to cover the costs but I fond it so helpful. As they're midwives they were also realistic about sometimes interventions are needed, and your plan might not end properly being what happens but how you can use the hypnobirthing techniques to help to stay calm if that happens, there was definitely some stuff around the most important things being mum and babies safety, and that needing an intervention was OK, not your fault at the end of the day all that mattered was everyone being safe and well, gas and air is fine, if you need extra pain relief you can ask for it, it's OK to change your plan, I found it positive and helpful but also realistic and think it really helped me, that doesn't sound like what this company offer though

I agree, they should be realistic that it's not necessarily going to be possible to follow all their advice so that when the birth plan goes out the window mother's aren't left with mum guilt.

Ughh. Honestly I find the whole ethos around this infuriating. You are absolutely right (although probably shouldn't be surprised they deleted your comments).
Even the ideas around the birth plan annoy me. Don't get me wrong, it's good to state your preferences around certain medications and procedures but realistically, no one knows how it will play out.
I was lucky. Had two reasonable births and not so much as a paracetamol so guess I'd fall into what they want (minus the whale music and not wishing to be touched and certainly not stroked!) But they are both still blurs.
I wasn't under the influence of any drug, no gas and air, both delivered in the pool but I still somehow felt quite out of it.
My most vivid memory is how utterly disgusting the water was having had reasonable blood loss, being unable to sit and hold my baby without feeling like I was going to drown him and finding stepping over the side of the pool a challenge before getting stitches with my legs up.
Sorry, waffling but what I'm trying to say is that I had what many who didn't beat themselves up over but it really isn't the experience hyped up here. Of course it's amazing because you have an amazing baby you are mesmerised by but I imagine that applies whatever way and however much intervention is required to get it out!

I'm sorry you had a bad experience op.

I remember reading the page in my maternity notes with the birthing plan and honestly thought it was a waste of time.

It's beyond our control ultimately so my birthing plan was that we both get out of it alive and anything else is by the wayside. I'm lucky that mine weren't traumatic but I agree companies shouldn't be selling the idea of control over birth. It just doesn't work that way.

I d never heard of this company or concept but it sounds like a load of garbage. I can’t stand all this stuff because it inevitably leads to a sense of failure if it doesn’t go to plan. It was bad enough buying into all the ‘breastfeeding will be great’ garbage. When I was expecting DC2 and had to fill in the section about how baby will be fed I wrote ‘the baby will decide’ and I gave the midwife who snorted at that both barrels because no midwife could get DC1 to breastfeed and he loved the bottle.
It’s great if you have an easy birth - wonderful. But if you don’t you need to get your head round it as fast as possible otherwise you’re going to end up in a bad place while you’re looking after a newborn if you’re dwelling on what went ‘wrong’. So in my opinion it’s best to accept that you might have to be induced or have a c section and if you don’t, then great. If you do (I’ve had both) then the most important thing is to have a safe procedure. I had two great deliveries - not the way I had hoped but the staff were great and all went well.
You can probably tell that 21 years on I’m still keen that women go into childbirth with their eyes wide open and focus on the great thing they’ve done, bringing new life into the world, and not worrying at all if they haven’t had a certain type of birth.

This blogger gave birth to her first the same time as me and had some trauma following hypnobirthing (can't remember if it was the same company or not).
www.lefriend.co.uk/2017/08/why-hypnobirthing-didnt-work-for-me.html?m=1

I didn't do it but it was the flavour of the month when I gave birth to my first.

Do not like what are about or what they stand for.

My sister in law gave me their course as a gift, I wish she hadn’t spent her money because after I read their ludicrous manifesto about birth not being a woman-centred experience I’d rather eat my own placenta than have anything to do with them.

Yanbu. They sucker you in when you’ve no experience of giving birth in the hope that you can have any influence. Then you find yourself induced on an understaffed maternity unit and no amount of affirmations can help that.

In fact, I’d say my perceived need to stay calm was actually to my detriment, as I really should’ve been kicking up a stink!

I used the PBC pack too! I thought it was really helpful and it set me up with a positive mindset for labour. During labour I was definitely calmer and more informed. However, the person that says every woman is designed to give birth, never had a forceps and episiotomy delivery! My body did not want to give birth! No matter how good my mindset was, it didn’t go as it was suggested it would!
But perhaps during birth ignorance is bliss.