kate winslet and the bogus natural birth

[squirmyworm]

anyone see that kate winslet story about how she had her first baby by emergency c-section but was too upset to admit to it as she felt a failure so she told everyone it had been a 'natural' birth. Only now she's had her second child 'naturally' and presumably feels she's done it properly and become a 'powerful woman' - I think those were her actual words - she says she feels she can admit what happened the first time. Anyone else feel really cross about this? How dare she imply that one kind of birth makes you a better woman than any other kind? I had an emergency section and the only thing that mattered to me was getting a healthy baby at the end of it... I certainly didn't waste any time pondering whether I wasn't a proper woman or not! I used to think she was quite down to earth but now it seems she's just another obsessively navel gazing celeb - or am I being unfair?

"powerful women's club"??? what utter crap. Being a mother does NOT make you better in itself. There are millions of brave, powerful, extraordinary women who have not given birth in any way at all. Many of the most exceptional, brave women in the world are not/were not mothers. I hate this view. It is IMO really reductive of women.

Yes, let's have a think, Mother Thersa (failed motherhood), Queen Elizabeth 1 (failed motherhood), Rosalind Franklin (failed motherhood), Florence Nightingale (failed motherhood), what resounding failures they all were....women of little improtance as they never gave birth!

I am not specifically defending KW, but I do think celebs have it really hard. Kind of damned if you do, damned if you don't. I can't imagine having to live my life in the public eye like they do I know they 'ask for it' and it comes with the job, but I still think it must be a difficult life, having your every word and action scrutinised.

I just think we should leave them alone. Let them get on with their lives and stop expecting them to superhuman and stop judging them every time they get something wrong. Just accept that they are people like everyone else, and stop expecting them to be anything more.

I think celeb magazines like Heat have a lot to answer for.

I don't think that the problem is that I expect KW to be better than everyone else. I think the problem with celebs is that they sometimes seem to think that they are more important than everyone else! I think that the woman is just as entitled to her opinion on C sections as anyone that posts on Mumsnet, but no more than that. I also have the right to disagree with her opinion.

KW is a good actress, but she is no more an expert on giving birth than I am. Celebs' silly, attention seaking, navel gazing, pontifications get on my nerves TBH. If she wants to be left alone she should have resited the temptation to shout her (rather misguided to my mind) opinions to the masses. Just cos they are famous it doesn't mean that their opinions are worth listening to.

I think I would be happy to leave her alone - except she was pontificating in what I think is a profoundly stupid and damaging way in an interview where she knew her views would be published in a very public arena.
As for more non-powerful women who 'failed' to give birth, let's add, Edith Cavell, Jane Austen, Oprah Winfrey, Mary Seacole, Amelia Earhart, Martha Graham, Kate Hepburn, Margaret Bourke White...the list just goes on and on. I do find it offensive to find a woman saying that your whole importance as a woman depends on giving birth vaginally. I just think that is utter rubbish and really damaging to womankind.

Also KW has often talked about/boasted about seeing herself as a role model for other women - esp on issues around body image. I think if you very clearly describe yourself in those terms (and I've met her and she did) then you should be more careful.

Agree completely, aloha.

Don't think Kate will be showing her face at any more Mums n' Tots groups for the foreseeable future, do you?

Well that whole body image thing peed me off too. She went on about how she loved being curvy (when she was still probably just a size 12 and skinnier than the average British woman) then lost loads of weight!

OK, I probably am not over keen on her. I always thought she looked like Leo DeCaprio's mother in Titanic.

Funnily enough, I rather liked her when I met her - she was all peachy keen and passionate and as sincere as a teenager. But I don't think she thinks very deeply about stuff or indeed, much beyond her own, very emotional reactions to events. It seems slightly childish.

TBH aloha a lot of celebs seem to be the same. They think that because they are famous they are expert in whatever issue they talk about. There are obviously exceptions to this, there are famous people who are thoughtful and educated about subjects that they feel strongly about. Others just seem to be overindulged teenagers.

Haven't read the other posts squirmyworm, but would agree that it seems a bit of a plonkerish remark from dear old Kate

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I loved the way that I would chat to people in M& T groups about their birth experiences. I knew how many stiches they had, how seldom they now had sex, how saggy/massive/too small their boobs new were, and all from women whi had never told me their last name!

I never felt excluded at having had a section....I felt we had all gone through the birth experience in different ways.

I find all this natural vs C Section stuff different to comprehend. We have all given birth. It is like people getting to London. Some go by train, some by bus, some by car and some even walk. Can you imagine how crazy we would think if someone said, well I never realy went to London because I didn't walk all 300 miles, I went by car. Getting there doesn't matter, all that matters is that we make the most of it while we are there.

There's always the chance that she issued that silly statement about Mia's birth being natural while she was still in shock from 37 hours plus emergency c-section. Or that she was poorly advised by a clueless agent. Or she was suffering from PND.
Yes, she was a twerp to lie, and yes, her gushing is not helpful to other ordinary women, but anyone who's ever had a c-section, elective or otherwise, that they didn't want, will understand a bit of what's going on in poor old Kate's baby-addled brain. I'm very glad for her that she found her second birth so much more satisfying and don't feel that her pronouncements have any impact at all on how I felt about mine. And I really agree with stupidgirl. Celeb magazines, Saturday newspaper magazines in recent years, television, have all created a market for celebrity trivia that a lot of less sensible people in the public eye have fallen for, hook line and sinker.

What a shame that Kate Winlet feels that she has to 'lie' about her C/S. It says more about the emotional trauma she has been through rather than a criticism of modes of delivery ie vaginal is better than abdominal. It is a pity that the world needs to know intimate details of her life in the first place. Most of us I am sure don't feel the need to influence national opinion of us. Glad I am not a celebrity...

I don't think that the world does need to know how she delivered, or anything else about her private life. I don't understand the facination with celebs at all I'm afraid.

I just feel that after all the reams of stuff she's said about being a role model for 'real' women, she issued a false statement about having a totally natural birth complete with comments about having no pain relief and how she was 'stoical' about pain, that I am sure contributed to the unrealistic raising of the bar about childbirth, and thus helped to ensure other women felt every bit as shit about their birth experience as she did. After all, there is huge moral weight given to suffering in 'right' way in childbirth. She had a chance to say something that might have helped other women feel better, but deliberately chose to make a statement which would be extremely unhelpful to women in the same position as her - and now I think she compounds that by her latest gushing. I do think that if she had at long last acknowledged that women are not actually failures for having a section, that giving birth vaginally does not make women superior to those who don't, and that she was lucky to have the birth of her choice second time around, then I might be less cross with her.

I want to emphasise, I have no problem at all with her saying she loved her second birth and really enjoyed it and that it has helped her get over what was clearly a very traumatic and frightening first birth (36 hour labour and emergency c-section). I think that's absolutely fair enough. I do think though that when you deliberately set yourself up as a role model for ordinary women and talk about keeping yourself real, and much of your success depends upon this, then you must expect criticism when part of that earthy image turns out to be fake.

Personally I can see exactly why she lied. I had 2 c-sections and I feel really pissed off and yes guilty that my body wasn't able to do things 'naturally'. I didn't have a choice first time around, and I know it was life and death, but I still feel c**p about it. 2nd time I was even more determined to exercise my righ and to choose a natural birth - I couldn't have one, and I have never been more disappointed about anything. It is for me, not other women that I feel this way and I genuinely belive everyonne has the right to choose what they want. If you don't have the birth you want you do feel powerless - this is how I felt anyway.

At the time of having Mia the celeb birth thing was big (as it still is) and the 'too posh to push' spouting was starting out, after saying she wanted a Natural birth to end up with a c-section probably really upset her and she didn't want to admit to being in HER eyes 'a failure'. I don't feel she is telling me or any other women that they 'failed' but rather she is being honest that she felt this way.

As with all celebs, damned if you do ....

Obviously I am a freak, because I actually enjoyed having a c-section, and cannot imagine having a baby any other way having had one
Seriously though, do you not think that part of your feelings of 'failure' come from outside pressures - that the notion of a 'perfect' birth - ie vaginal, no pain relief etc - have to come from somewhere outside of yourself? Do you not think that a celebrity saying airily, "Oh yes, I had a totally natural birth, with no pain relief because I am earthy and stoical" really does help set up other women to feel like failures when they don't match up to this?

Got this from a google -

"People have always told me I have child-bearing hips and now it's time to put them to good use," said Kate before the big event. Baby Mia was born in London's St John and St Elizabeth Hospital at 5.40am on 12th October 2000, weighing a hearty 8lbs 9ozs.

Kate had a natural drug-free birth with no complications. "I'm stoical and have a pretty high pain threshold," she said. "I've had a good training for labour with some of my film roles, especially Titanic when I was immersed for days in freezing tanks of water."

I had an emergency c-section. I wouldn't have lied about it happening, but I can see the temptation in contemplating lying, especially when KW seems to have talked up her plans for a "natural" birth beforehand.
Once out of hospital I was greeted with either pity or point scoring (well it can't be as bad as my ingrown toenail type-thing). Yes the birth wasn't great but for 8.5 mths previously I'd constructed a pretty gorgeous wee boy.

If I was a a celeb, and that's what it would have taken for people to gloss over my birth in the press in order to allow me to move seamlessly back into Hideous Kinky earth mother roles, then in those circles I can see the temptation for her to continue to retain a marketing man's dream image. Very very sad, but plausible.

I do think that it makes me think everything about her is a pose too.

Aloha, I am with you on this one! I'm fine and the kids are fine so why worry?? To my mind it is like concentrating on the wedding instead of the marrage.

Hideous Kinky was the worst film ever, and I suppose I do feel a bit bitter that I wasted some of my life watching half of it!

Personally, I have to say I always thought childbirth would hurt like hell. Every single literary and oral culture perpetrated by women says it's the most painful thing you can go through. I couldn't quite understand why other first-timers in my antenatal group seemed to think it wouldn't be quite unspeakably painful.

I can see why she lied - quite possibly I would have done too - but I still feel cross.