Stop Romanticizing Pregnancy & Childbirth
Sure, it’s a miracle. That doesn’t make it safe, or easy
There is a disturbing culture of minimizing the dangers of pregnancy and childbirth in the United States. That would be bad enough on its own if it wasn’t also for the fact that many people refuse to acknowledge pregnancy and childbirth:
- kills approximately 800 American women every single year, and that statistic will only go up with the abortion bans
- causes lasting, sometimes severe injuries
- quite often does not go smoothly
- increases a woman’s chance of being murdered by her intimate partner
Some of this culture of idealizing pregnancy and childbirth is because women are trained to keep quiet about our bodily functions and body parts because they’re viewed as disgusting. Women will swap birth war stories when we’re with each other, but almost never in mixed company, so as to not gross anyone out or, God forbid, make a man uncomfortable.
We don’t talk about our perineums routinely being torn and having to be sewn up. I have a friend who had a fourth degree tear that later became infected. She was in agonizing pain for months.
