Not offering seats for pregnant women

[Pregnantgrumps]

I’m pregnant for the first time and have been really shocked and disappointed in people’s failure to offer seats on public transport / waiting rooms / platforms / you name it.

Is this just a phenomenon in my local area or everywhere now?

At first from about 5 months pregnant I joked about it to DP and family and friends: how pregnant do you have to be before people offer you a seat?? But I’m now 40 WEEKS pregnant and not laughing anymore.

Basically I’ve discovered the only chance of being offered a seat is if there’s a woman sitting who has been pregnant herself. If it’s all young people or men you can forget it.

Yesterday I was literally having to weigh up do I get off the train and wait for another that might have seats or do I say something and try and shame people into getting up. Because I can no longer stand for the full journey to the hospital / midwives.

I appreciate maybe there’s some people who carry their pregnancy weight in such a way that it’s ambiguous but I literally look like I’m shoplifting a melon here.

Like the OP, they use their voice.

As you must never assume a lady is pregnant until you see the baby emerge. I think you will just have to ask.

I was standing on a crowded train recently when a man said loudly, ostensibly addressing a standing pregnant woman "Don't worry, it's just that these people sitting don't seem to have noticed you're pregnant, I'm sure as soon as they do one of them will give you a seat." Cue three or four sitting passengers springing to their feet. Must admit if I were the pregnant woman I would have been a bit mortified, but it was very effective.

As someone who needed a seat both as a disabled person and a pregnant lady twice- for christ's sake you ask for the seats!

People are reading, thinking, working, chatting, scrolling facebook on their phone etc. while they travel. They are not scanning your chest and belly.

Head for the seats marked priority seats and ask if anyone might be able to give up their seat. Don't assume they don't also all have a need for it (my medical needs are internal/ joint related and you wouldn't know about them from seeing me sat down). Be polite and if noone can stand for you (rare in my experience) someone nearby has usually heard the request and will offer.

People are pretty decent and kind really, but not mind readers or all that observant.

Fine. ‘I have been repeatedly negatively surprised by this experience’. Is that better?

If it’s a complete non-event you don’t need to waste anymore of your time sharing your opinion on it, don’t worry.

On a metro in Spain there were no seats. Two young men, eyes glued to phones, were sitting under the sign showing their seats were for elderly people. I prodded one with my walking stick and pointed it at the sign.
He immediately got up full of apologies and his pal also offered his seat to my husband.
Maybe continental folk are more courteous. (Just waiting to be told they are like wild charging beasts and not polite at all.)

Oh honestly…. You're equally entitled to a seat and you can just say no if someone asks if you wouldn't mind giving up a seat.

It’s not your approach, it’s what you said - “the amount of times obviously able bodied people….” You have made a huge assumption that they are obviously able bodied. You have no way of knowing that at all and to assume is very ableist.

For Christ’s sake - OK!

Sorry for posting

I was responding re your post on hidden disabilities

YANBU, OP.

I find wearing the badge worse as then you know nobody’s got an excuse for not realising you’re pregnant. I’m also really rather obviously pregnant and had to stand at the front of the bus yesterday near the driver’s door…as we jerked through bumper to bumper Tube strike traffic. Honestly.

Whilst less obviously pregnant but sporting the badge, I still had to stand by the doors on the Tube. One girl even pushed herself on as the doors were closing, the backpack scraping across my bump. I got off early at the next stop. Couldn’t bear it.

Pre-pregnancy, I never sat in the priority seats. Unless that bus or train is deserted or you have a disability/need, just don’t sit there and it’d be so much easier for those in need to sit down. I agree with you - it IS shocking and saddening how little self-awareness some people have these days.

Pregnant friends have been met with a “no” or, even after pointing at bump/badge, have had people immediately look away. Perhaps a “oh, that’s ok if I don’t sit down. I apologise in advance if I vomit on you whilst in transit however”. Might make some people see sense

Never mind heavily pregnant women, on buses around here (I use them a lot) it’s so common for very young women to plonk themselves in the first, clearly labelled priority seats, and then be so engrossed in their phones - or pretending to be - that they don’t notice some frail looking elderly person who’s having to stand, and evidently doesn’t like to ask them to move.

More than once I’ve spoken on their behalf.

Please don’t anybody tell me they probably have hidden disabilities. I just can’t believe that they all do, not when they hop on and off the bus like mountain goats.
And - shameful to say - it’s almost always young women! I have hardly ever seen any young man or e.g. teen schoolboy boy do the same.

I found the 'Baby on Board!' badges really helpful on the tube. It meant that there was no ambiguity about my actually being pregnant.

I have to say that when I was pregnant, people were fantastic on the tube. There was one journey in particular, on an absolutely packed central line train, where a number of men helped me to get a seat when I wouldn't otherwise have been seen by the people in the priority seats.

OP, is there an equivalent badge or something you could wear (if you're not in London), if that's an option you'd be comfortable with?

I was once standing on a busy tube train, I was only going a couple of stops so not bothered about having a seat (didn’t know if I’d get up from one, to be honest - I was pretty heavily pregnant at this point).
Some teenage boys got on, spotted that I was both pregnant and standing and proceeded to berate the seated passengers. They were very sweet.

I’m really baffled that people think me being disappointed that it’s not more common for people to offer a seat is ‘over dramatic’ yet there’s so many people getting so worked up on this thread simply over whether I ask for a seat or not.

Nah, just literally not blind. Seeing a third trimester bump or a badge doesn’t require psychic abilities.

It was meant in a jokey way OP, it wasn't meant unkindly, more like a call to find your voice! Sorry if you took it negatively.

I was a hidden disability asker before I was a pregnant lady asker, so I was always coming from the feeling that people aren't really likely to know unless you find a way to advocate for yourself. I am also naturally very shy, but you do it and it gets easier. I think it's unfair to assume the worst (that they have realised you are pregnant and choosing not to offer) rather than not really paying attention. Truly people are usually really nice about being asked. Interestingly I've found that men are a lot more likely to get up than women.

Because the inability of people to calmly solve a simple issue but politely using their voice is much more irritating than the the situation itself. Speaking for myself.

I remember being heavily pregnant and standing on the bus, felt like my bump was going to rip off my body at every corner, it was actually agony. There was also a VERY geriatric frail old lady standing who nearly fell a few times and a young man on crutch with a broken leg but every seat was filled with kids in school uniform (secondary school so about 12-16) not giving a single fuck. That was nearly 20 years ago so not 'new'.

I was on a bus several years ago and I was first on and sat at the back (bus completely empty, first journey of the day). Then 2 ladies got on who where older but not 'elderly' about their 60s and they sat in the priority seats right at the front in the wheelchair/buggy bay. Then the last passenger on was a lady with a pram (sleeping baby in it) and toddler. She parked the pram in the space for prams/wheelchairs which the women started loudly complaining about, they where completely and unnecessarily verbally attacking this woman about how they where 'their first' and 'priority seats are for OAPs like them'. There was priority seats on the other side of the aisle too (8 seats in total, 4 at each side but only 2 in the bay), apart from me at the back the WHOLE bus was empty.

The bus driver asked them to move and they got even more aggressive the woman was stood their trying not to cry as she was just ripped apart by these bullies calling her fat and lazy and shouldn't have had kids etc... in the end the bus driver told them move and be quite or he wouldn't go anyway.

It was totally bizarre when they could have sat literally anywhere else but that was the only place for a pram. There was ZERO reason they needed to be specifically in the bay but the sheer entitlement of their ranting was utterly insane. Like they thought a 'bus pass' gave them some sort of special status over everyone else. Makes you wonder what was going on in their head when they literally only need to move about a foot or so to the next row and would have caused them no issues. Its like their hill to die on was they 'had a bus pass which gave them priority'.

It was a really tense and awkward 1 hour bus ride until they got off.

I used the train regularly when pregnant with my first child. When it started to show I was almost always offered a seat. That was over 40 years ago and long before phones so people actually noticed their fellow passengers. I don’t think people deliberately ignore the pregnant passengers, they just don’t see them and would, if their attention were drawn to your condition, offer a seat.

I was very rarely not offered a seat when pregnant, but I was very obviously pregnant from early on. The times I wasn't, I asked.
I have a number of times offered a "pregnant" person a seat... Who was not in fact pregnant and I really upset them. Maybe that's why. Kr people just don't notice.

Hmm. I would normally offer my seat to anyone apparently in more need of it than I, but if a random man made a loud passive-aggressive comment like that, I'd be tempted to reply "I've noticed but I don't care."

Once I was obviously pregnant, I always got a seat on the tube (London). Often several people jumping up at once. And I actually found it was more likely to be young men than any other demographic. Trains were more iffy though for some reason. It was exactly the same when I broke my foot and had a cast and crutches. Always on tube but not always on a train. No idea why that is.

I would offer, I am shocked people dont and going to make sure I mention to my teen kids later and more regularly when we are on public transport.

first post nails it. Or get a ‚baby on board badge’ personally i prefer just asking, people are busy and don’t notice tbh