Positive Birth Company

[YorkshireGirl35]

Hi

Before I start I just want to say that I never really start threads on mumsnet and I am nowhere near as clued up on feminist issues as many of you are.

I just wondered if anyone else followed the Positive Birth Company and has seen that they are now getting behind the whole “Chest feeding” thing. I’m already angry about this subject and many of the things that have been happening, such as my favourite author being ripped to pieces, but this feels like a joke. The whole reason I’ve paid for their course and materials is because they seemed like they were all about female empowerment and making informed birth choices. Clearly not!

What also annoys me is that you can’t even say you disagree with things like this on a Facebook post incase someone decides to tell your employers that you are a TERF! I’ve already seen posts on there saying that women are not entitled to have a view on the subject unless they are trans.

I don’t know what the point of my post is really, just find it depressing that this is the way things are going. Especially when I’m expecting a daughter soon.

@YorkshireGirl35

Thanks everyone I’m glad I’m not alone in my thoughts here. I’ve asked them for a refund and had a load of woke waffle back about how they are pro women etc. I’ve also had my comments from their post deleted, I didn’t say anything remotely offensive or aggressive. As *@MotherWitch* has said above they seemed to almost apologise to the person who called everyone offensive names and just deleted the rest of us. Sums it up!

@YorkshireGirl35 Are they refusing to give you a refund?

Why are we/the majority not being included to placate the minority? I don't understand?

Because the minority and those who support them are Good People, and anyone who opposes Good People are Bad People doing it for Bad Reasons.

And anyone who asks questions about it are also Bad People. Because Good People do what they're told by other Good People without asking questions.

I hope you're going to stop asking questions, or you someone might think you were a Bad Person. And all the Good People would have to disown you.

In other words, the actual issue doesn't really matter at this point - it's just a group loyalty test. And people demonstrate their own loyalty by testing others'.

This is a mutually-convenient dance between a bunch of males who are satisfying their personal needs, and a bunch of authoritarians who are quite happy to use this issue to filter for conformist personalities and get rid of difficult people who ask too many questions. (Or suppressive persons as a certain group calls them).

This thread gets quite heated. Interesting read and good on the women standing their ground on behalf of women who believe we are being erased

www.instagram.com/p/CLZM1_-lHFm/?igshid=19gkg4tx78m57

@FTMF30 yep! They said they have always made their “inclusive” ethos very clear.
I’ve given them a one star review on Facebook to make myself feel better

I posted on the Instagram thread linked above, again calmly saying I didn’t agree, someone starting hurling abuse at me that someone in my career shouldn’t have these views etc. Obviously spying on my profile. There’s so much anger when you express a view on this.

Paraphrasing Abigail Shrier.. what is so hateful about being female that so many young girls want to opt out of it. This will not help... we need to be able to talk about female bodies and female biology in a way that we can be proud of our bodies and proud of our ability to bear children and give life to infant humans. Our daughters need to see pride in being naturally female without it being linked with performance and enhancement.

@YorkshireGirl35 Thats terrible! The more I hear about them, the more they seem to be a shitty company in so many ways.

The comments on Instagram are just sickening - transpeople tagging the OBC account saying comments opposing "chestfeeding" should be removed for hate speech. I just can't believe this is the world we're living in.

This question is all over my facebook groups today.

Milli Hill isn’t affiliated with the PBC as far as I know? It’s Siobhan something that runs that one.

Their Facebook page was all mothers and birth parents or something to that affect the other week when I looked.

Part of their statement. They do still use the word mother and breastfeeding. They have added additional language though. I can’t get too worked up about additional language as long as the words I want to use for my journey as a pregnant woman are still used.

I have unfollowed them for this exact reason. It is a attack on women's services, it infuriates me. We do not see this "woke" change in language in men's services do we?

We don't call it "between leg cancer" we call it what it is, testicular cancer.

I will always refer to women and women's services as for women in the first instance.

If there are a small minority who wish for other terms I am happy to oblige. However my automatic, general language will be female.

We are going backwards, I will never buy from PBC due to this.

"Additive language". That's a new one!

WeeTorag an interesting insta post. There are many many women saying no, just no.

How did you pay for the course, can yiu get your bank/credit card company to do a chargeback for a service not provided?

@Sexnotgender

Milli Hill isn’t affiliated with the PBC as far as I know? It’s Siobhan something that runs that one.

Their Facebook page was all mothers and birth parents or something to that affect the other week when I looked.

Yep this is correct.

It is Siobhan Miller.

Can I ask how much you paid OP? Don't say if you don't want to. I just thought it could be quite funny to go through the small claims court if they refused to refund you. Could make a nice story in The Natural Parent Magazine or Everyday Birth Magazine

@OhHolyJesus £30 for the course, then I was stupid enough to also spend £17 on the book and £10 on affirmation cards. I really brought into this tripe, typical that now that I have to have a c section anyway which it hardly covers

Whoever is running the Instagram account told me earlier that if I didn’t support trans people they didn’t want me to follow their business. I then said ok could I have a refund please and they had the audacity to say no but they would donate my money to a LBTQ charity! they promptly deleted their comment but not before I took a screenshot. Not a nice business clearly.

That's vile. I really hope you get your money back. I wonder if there is an ombudsmen for this sort of thing? A refund is the very least they could do. Or maybe get them on false advertising? I don't know, I just hate this crap so much but more so when it involves money or products.

I mean if you're selling menstrual cups you want to hope that the only people who are buying them are women or else I'd be worried about the burden on the MHS for trips to ER for their removal.

Which one has written the book to help people have a positive experience of birth? And also do online hypnobirthing classes?

The company or the movement? I was planning on doing the online course as pregnant with my first baby.

I was shocked recently when I did some research for a younger relative who is having a baby. I had told her all about how I’d had a doula at my last birth and how fantastic it was. I found loads of these allegedly ‘inclusive’ doulas on their Instagram accounts and websites embracing this new language. One charming doula actually called women ‘cunts’ for daring to hold the belief that only women can give birth and believing that people’s genitalia is a bit of a clue as to whether they’re a man or woman. How dare we have such T*fy ideas!

I totally support any trans man who wants someone who is ‘on-board’ with their particular beliefs attending their births. If using the wrong pronoun would ruin their birth experience, then employ someone who is well-practiced in attending such births and won’t make any awkward slips of the tongue. But don’t expect everyone else to totally strip away all female words around the birth process to accommodate your own beliefs.

I imagine there are many midwives or doulas who would politely decline attending a birth where they would have to ignore the evidence before their own eyes and not be allowed to use ‘contentious’ words like woman, mother, breasts, vagina etc... I hope their voices are not drowned out. Or that they routinely get called ‘cunts’ by others in their profession.

And the ANGER these people feel towards the ‘bigots’ who dare to not totally convert to this new way of thinking. One American doula very earnestly described how this bizarre idea that there are 2 sexes, was ‘invented’ by white, male scientists in the 19th Century?!! WTAF!

I personally find it a bit sad to see a newly-born baby being laid onto the ‘chest’ of a trans man that has had a perfectly healthy pair of breasts removed (although very happy that a healthy baby has been born and that the trans man is happy) Am I allowed to express this on MN? (I’ll soon find out no doubt!)

I find it all so very frustrating and utterly baffling.

According to the Lionel shriver article in the Sunday times, there were only two transmen who gave birth up to 2017. Being generous, I'd say we are now up to fewer than 10.

Why are we all changing language for this tiny number of people who are so dysphoric that we can't even name body parts but who have no issue with conceiving, carrying and giving birth to a baby?

There are so many more minority groups of women whose needs during pregnancy and childbirth have been entirely overlooked.

It is AWFUL in the birth world at the moment. It feels as though the groups/orgs that are meant to assist women grappling with misogynistic aspects of the maternity system are so steeped in this ideology that they are themselves anti-woman. There was a 'lively' discussion on the Birthrights FB page last week on the BSUH policies, which also resulted in lots of deletion and calling women abusive/hateful. One doula, who apparently assists BR with some of their work, confirmed that it's bigoted for women who want female HCPs to refuse care from TW on that basis.

Woman-centred doulas and midwives are walking away because the climate is so toxic. The bullying is off the scale.

Also wanted to reiterate that it's the Positive Birth Company who do the courses/hypnobirthing packs and don't know what a woman is. I'm actually in a couple of birth groups who won't allow any endorsement of them because they only allow positive birth stories on their page/group. Women who have experienced disappointment or trauma in birthing have had their posts removed.

The Positive Birth Movement is the one founded by Milli Hill, who has steadfastly maintained female-centric language and copped so much bullying over the last few months. I think she also criticised Mermaids at one point? She's the author of The Positive Birth Book and Give Birth Like a Feminist (both excellent) and has a new book coming out for girls about periods.

OP, I'm really sorry you've been treated so shabbily by a company that is supposed to support women, them refusing to refund you is shocking!

I've had two c-sections and found Maggie Howell's caesarean-hypnobirthing script really good when I was a bit nervous beforehand, it's on Apple.

I'm in awe of Milli Hill. She is absolutely steadfast in maintaining woman-centred language and shows no signs of caving in. She is able to get away with it because she is such a big, influential name in the birth world. Everyone else is falling all over themselves to be "kind" and "inclusive". I've noticed on Instagram that things have actually got worse since last week and the announcement of the BSUH guidelines- so many new pronouns and references to birthing parents in people's content!

That PBC Instagram post referenced below is telling. It's basically tons of women explaining why they find this new "inclusive" language problematic/triggering, while a whole bunch of woke doulas/hypnobirthing teachers/professional birthy type people tell them why they're wrong and / or a bunch of TERFs. Anyone who is trying to make money in the birth world is falling into line, yet their actual clientele are telling them that they don't like this change. Likely the majority of these birth professionals have never had a trans client, not are they likely to any time soon, so there is obviously no commercial reason for this. It's about being in the woke club or possibly feeling coerced into it so they don't get called out.

I'm really sorry that you have had such a downright negative start to your time as a mother, particularly wrt BREAST feeding. It's been what feels a lifetime since I breastfed my DC, but believe me, I am incandescent with rage about what you describe above, and in your position would absolutely not hesitate to write a very strongly worded email detailing my reactions to the language they use and demanding a refund. I sincerely hope that other women who do the same.
I wish you many sisterly good wishes with the birth of your baby, and with breastfeeding. Once you've got it established, it's lovely.
PS - one tip: nobody ever told me that BF can bloody hurt your nipples at first. A midwife recommended Lansinoh, which you can easily buy online now, and I never looked back. I only needed it for a few days, and didn't need it for my next two babies as my nipples. Good luck 😃

Sorry - meant to say: .. as my nipples had toughened up after BF baby number one.