Why are people so vile to women who have had bad experiences in childbirth?

[Ushy]

I just saw this in the online Mail:

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2192214/Can-having-baby-Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder-Yes-say-mothers-suffered-flashbacks-nightmares-crippling-depression-.html#comments

It is about women who have had traumatic experiences in childbirth and then ended up with PTSD. My heart went out to them - they were all badly affected.

Then I read the comments underneath. They are VILE:

"Yawn..don't have another baby then" "Can't you just tell that these whining women are going to have whining children" "Oh Poor Susanne, only got two paracetamo...so what?" "Years ago women just got on with it , life is too easy" etc etc etc etc etc...lots of etc etc

EH? Why are people like this?

People are like this because they have either made the decision not to have children or they have had perfect births followed by their opinion of perfect children and have no empathy or sympathy for those women who have not had a perfect / easy time of it and so have nothing better to do but judge.

Then they think that the rest of us need to hear their pathetic opinions when in fact... We don't :)

its the daily mail, they aren't real people.

I think you should re-phrase that to "why do Daily Mail readers who use the comment section have such a bad opinion of humanity?"

There ought to be a shortcut or acronym for that reply.....

People can be massive dickheads, thats why!

I especially love the people that go on about their perfect births and then claim it's because they prepared for it as if people who end up with a crash section under GA and then a baby in nicu did so through lack of effort! Morons.

I guess it comes down to sexism really - to acknowledge these women's experiences would be to acknowledge that childbirth is a big deal. Our society tends to devalue anything that is solely a woman's concern.

I think it comes under the wider category of people who are just horrid to mothers (although this is the DM, ans reality is rather diffrent there). Before I became a Mum I had not realised how much the media have it for mothers - whether the breast feed, bottle feed, do or don't have 'natural' births, how and when they wean, how and when they do or do not let their babies cry..... It goes on and on and on....
But getting back to the thread - God forbid you should have sustained birth injuries. Then you can get told things like how you can't expect your body to be the same afterwards and there can be the suggestion that not wanting to sustain that kind of damage again (or at all, in the first place) means that you are vain and putting yourself before your child.

Unfortunately some people are horrible, often because when they were young people were horrible to them. So for example, my little boy fell over yesterday onto a concrete step edge and badly scuffed his knees. A woman near us laughed at him crying. I said to her 'I don't understand why you are laughing at someone crying because they have hurt themselves' - and inside I thought 'I bet your kids felt shit if you laughed at them when they cried'.

I also agree with methe that people can be massive dickheads!

It's a mistake to think that the people leaving those comments have any opinion at all. They enjoy being cruel anonymously, that is all. I doubt it's anything to do with the subject matter.

Hmmm.... people like are just vile to women in general I suspect. How cruel!

The highest rated comments are actually quite good and supportive - I always just look at those (when I, erm, read the DM...).

You're right - they are getting 'red arrowed' but there are so many of them.

I've just added my red arrow to these

"Ridiculous. Another case of modern society needing a label to attach to people or situations that years ago would have been treated with the contempt they deserve. "

"How pathetic trying to equate child birth with fighting a war"

"life is too easy ....so when some women have to go though childbirth its a bit of a shock to the system....I have 5 children, 2 who are twins and all were born naturally with no traumatics...its all in the mind..its natural end of.."

Some people think 'oh yeah, childbirth hurts, blahblahblah, big deal, can't be that painful, it's natural etc etc ' - they think it's just what women are supposed to do. As well as this, women are positively encouraged to be competitive and horrible and unsupportive of each other by twits like the DM - this applies to all sorts of parts of life and sadly, childbirth and parenting seem to be no different

I saw a Daily Mail article about someone posting racist comments on Twitter. One of the readers comments was 'Whatever happened to freedom of speech in this country?'
Just don't read the Daily Mail would be my advice- it's filth.

What Greenhill said.
"People" aren't, on the whole, vile to women who have had bad experiences in childbirth. It's a bit like reading a National Front leaflet and asking why "people" are racist - er, no, just the people who write that drivel.

Brilliant. "it's all in the mind"

Really? So all those women who have died in childbirth in the past and today - well it's just natural isn't it. And those babies that have died in the past and today due to a lack of medical help and intervention. Well it's natural isn't it.

In fact maybe we should withdraw any type of medical help for people that make such comments and let them see how they fancy leading a "natural" life.

Cretins.

But most people are not vile to women who have had bad birth experiences. Thankfully

It took a long time for depression to be taken seriously and it to be socially unacceptable to pass comment on people being 'weak'. It still happens but the change in attitudes is still an enormous shift.

It will happen for childbirth I'm sure. But only if people keep challenging people who make dickheaded remarks like this.

Childbirth is a physical and mental process. One that is pretty much incomparable to any other event in life. All this nonsense that its comparing it to war because its PTSD just proves how bloody ignorant all those people are in assuming thats the only way you can get PTSD.

Women years ago died in childbirth. We don't accept that now. We don't have to accept the attitudes to childbirth that came from that time period either.

One day things will catch up with the 21st Century... just will take time.

Hmm well said

You must remember when someone feels the need to comment online they probably disagree strongly about the article - there are probably lots of nice normal people reading the article, nodding quietly and agreeing to themselves - they don't post.

Also, sorry, if you read the Daily Mail every day you probably do despise women on some level, you cant absorb that drip drip of hatred and contempt and it not change your thinking.

I'm with skatergirl - DO NOT READ THE DAILY BIGOT.

The one saying a soldier in afghanistan would be offended by his experiences being linked to a woman's in a maternity ward....

Well no it's not at all similar choosing to go to another country and kill people, compared to being caused permanent physical damage by something you expected to be relatively straightforward as it's so natural, whilst being fearful for your and your child's life, knowing there's nothing you can do to change the ituation. FFS

Oh and why must the soldier be male?

I have recently weaned myself off the daily mail online. I used to like the gossip- but it is such an evil paper and the comments are so nasty.

I am pleased to report that despite being ignorant of celeb news I am recovering well, and have a renewed belief and optimism for humanity.

My advice would be: change the newspaper you read.

Daily Mail kitten block for Firefox

The comments are vile because they are coming from vile people. Simple as that!