Child birth is an amazing experience. Although exhausting, painful and gruelling, being able to finally hold your baby in your arms is a moment filled with complete joy and relief.
For many parents their child’s birth is the happiest day of their lives. The tiny life that they created together has finally entered the world after nine long months of incubation.
Despite this being an intimate moment typically only shared between parents – and a couple of members of a birthing team – a new trend has begun which sees the birthing suite filled with friends and family members.
It’s called ‘crowdbirthing’ or ‘birth entourages’ and young mums are embracing it like crazy according to a survey conducted by UK video blogging site Channel Mum.
That’s right, apparently young mums like to push in public (ish) with preggo mamas under 25 opting to bring an average of eight (yes, eight) people into their birthing suite to witness their bubba’s birth.
Yeesh, that’s a lot of pressure. It can be hard enough to let your partner see you in all your birthing glory, let alone your mum, your dad, your bestie, your brother, your nana, your sister-in-law, your dad’s new wife and your doula all getting in on the amniotic-fluid-fueled action too!
Founder of Channel Mum, Siobhan Freegard explained the trend, saying: “The younger generation are used to sharing every aspect of their lives, so why not birth? Many women feel it is their biggest achievement and so want to share the moment with all of those closest to them.
“The crowd-birthing phenomenon may not suit everyone but being part of the birth is an honour and privilege which unites friends and family like nothing else.”
The survey of 2000 mums also revealed that a quarter of mums share their birth experience on social media. Despite this, as many as 61 per cent of mums admitted to feeing pressure to give birth without pain relief due to feeling a sense of competition about the birthing experience.
A third of the mothers also said they felt that their labour would be judged if they chose to use any pain relief, and one in five agreed that they would feel a sense of failture if they needed a caesarean birth.
There’s certainly no denying that social media has brought child birth into the public space. Once an experience that women did privately and even without their husbands, now we see celebs like Robbie Williams live-tweeting the event and Pinterest boards dedicated to the ‘perfect’ labour.
Talk about pressure!
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