Ridiculous blogger ‘positive birth stories’

[Newmummyinlockdown]

I am pregnant with my second. Debating ELCS or VBAC. I have been trawling the internet for positive stories, but some of them I just think are ridiculous.

I’m doing the positive birth company (again) and have been open minded about labour - but I just can’t fathom how a vaginal birth can be this serene?

Read this birth story from RosieLondoner:

www.thelondoner.me/2019/03/birth-story.html

With sentences like ‘me and my husband had a roll in the hay after a night of contractions/I tucked into my Acai bowl/snuggled into my nest of cashmere blankets’ to be honest it sounds ridiculous.

Has anyone experienced a birth like this or is it just bloggers making everything seem Instaperfect?

I've only had one birth so far and, although I would say it was a positive one, it was nothing like that.

I think there's a fine line between there being a lot more information/support/options for pregnant woman and a worrying boom in the birthing industry where individuals are capitalising on women's fears and lack of knowledge.

While this woman might have had a utopian birthing experience, I think it's a far cry from many others' experience. These stories can leave women feeling really disappointed and upset when they buy into these influencer trends, hypnobirthing, etc. yet their experience is not one with candlelit calm and gently breathing the baby out.

I'm a strong advocate of natural births but it needs to be alongside a disclaimer that birth is undpredictable and things may not always go how you imagine/want them to. These bloggers just push a fantasy and it's quite annoying.

She is clearly a writer and actually didn’t have that easy a time of if being at only 1cm after hours of contractions etc. So it isn’t an unrealistic birth story at all it’s just written afterwards in a very picturesque way.
The homebirth attitude is amazing and the midwives who do them are equally amazing and awesome in the literal sense.
My granddaughter was born at home and was a shoulder dystocia birth. The midwives kept everyone calm while they managed an incredibly difficult birth with the best possible outcome- a healthy baby and mother. The hypno birthing techniques enabled my daughter to stay calm and listen to her body and the midwives and work with them. It was very much managed differently than it would have in hospital and I was beyond terrified… but if we wrote that birth story in a certain way I could manage to make it sound pretty serene as well…

The language she is using is clearly "story-telling" language. She isn't recalling events in a factual (or even truthful) way. She is selling a story and is promoting her friends' books and private midwifery services.

I agree with the pp. It's a shame that women are doing this. It's just as bad as the American birthing videos on YouTube where the women are clearly plastered with makeup while being filmed giving birth and calmly breathing their baby out (with an epidural of course!)

It sets you up for really unrealistic expectations. I think one born every minute is a bit more accurate!

Most women need to process their birth stories in part by creating a narrative around them In the case of birth trauma, we encourage them to get help to do so with counseling or birth reflections or talking to their partners or family. Sheila Kitzinger wrote quite a lot about it. But those who have had good experiences need to tell their own stories too and this kind of writing can help put words to it. This type of birth really isn't all that unique, at least for a home birth.