To think a birth announcement should be done by the parents, when they are ready...

[Jujubean77]

My relative had a baby due shortly and I was really surprised to see on Facebook that her sister had made an announcement of the baby's birth, really whooping it up "I am an auntie yaaaay" type comments with the name and all details on there. Knowing that the baby was not actually due for another 2 months I was shocked to read this.

After I called the Grandmother of the child, I learned that the poor little one is extremely critical, the Mother had an emergency situation also in hospital unwell and it is a very worrying time for them all round.

AIBU to think it is extremely insensitive under the circs of the birth to be announced in this way? Surely it would have been better fro the parents to communicate in their own time after everything has settled down and the baby out of danger?

Well, the baby has been born so why not announce it?

And not being heartless-had a prem myself, & the last thing on our minds was telling anyone-so it´s a good job someone did it for us!

YABU. I would assume that haing a traumatic experience and a prem baby would have meant that ringing arouns was the last thing on the parents mind. Perhaps they asked the sister to let everyone know ?

Actually, I am with the OP on this - had a similar thing with my ex-SIL recently and actually it wasn't a nice or helpful thing to do, it was an all-about-me, thunder stealing meanness!

I'd have thought if she was being 'helpful' that actually given the circumstances she could have passed on the news in any one of a hundred more considerate ways

Yanbu OP, it does seem at the very least 'unseemly'. If it were more restrained and sensitively worded, it could almost be forgiven...

Facebook eh? I'll say no more then....

Hmm.I can see that the parents would like this responsibility taken off their hands, it would be awful having to deal with endless great-aunts asking how much it weighed, and "Is she good" .

BUT, as heavenstobetsy says, this lass sounds quite rude. Some of my family would be devestated if they read about a new baby on FB.

When I was being induced I deliberately told only close family and asked SIL not to put anything on FB like "Good luck Cranky". (This is exactly the kind of thing SILs do, it seems

YANBU unless the parents specifically asked her to do it.

I felt for the Father's family yes, having it communicated in that way.

Facebook is awful for this kind of thing isn't it?

Thunder-stealing of the highest order and rather selfish of the auntie/sister. YANBU.

Oh dear - I did this last month. I don't think I upset anyone, and I certainly wouldn't if I thought it would have upset anyone - I didn't mean to cause problems, I was just super-excited, on a wave of love, and couldn't contain myself. Mum and baby were doing fine though. OP, sorry to hear about your relative, hope all are on the mend soon.

I know for a fact that my sister would never do anything to upset me purposefully and would be mortified if she knew this... but dh and I are still peeved that she posted birth announcement, baby details and PHOTOS on Facebook within two hours of my giving birth.

She wasn't even at the hospital, she took my mum's camera and uploaded all the photos. I had no idea she had done this (I had a pretty traumatic birth and was still shaking by this point from the shock of it all) until I started receiving texts from friends saying 'oh my god, congrats' and 'she looks gorgeous.' I sat there thinking 'how does everyone know ?

TBH I found it a huge invasion of privacy, especially to have all the photos up there (including ones taken literally seconds after the birth my dd on my chest - no nips on show but still, they were very 'raw' pictures). I've never said anything to her because she'd be so upset, and only did it because she was excited at being an auntie but still..... people should be a little more empathetic.

I think birth announcements ought to come from parents/people who've been specifically asked to make them by the parents. I also think it's reasonable for new aunties/uncles/cousins/grandparents/$other relatives + close friends to want to tell their own close friends about the birth, as it's a significant event in their lives. Without Facebook/other social networking lots of these conversations would have taken place without new parents necessarily being aware of them.

To that extent, I don't think someone talking about becoming an auntie etc is doing it out of any desire or intention to upstage the parents; it just has that effect when they do it in shared spaces online. So back to lessons in appropriate use of online spaces/explicit conversation about this kind of thing in advance...

UANBU I had a prem - everything out of my control and made worse by family spreading the news and photos (very personal birth/ incubator ones that I disn't want sharing) to all and sundry

YANBU