All About Us
Pregnancy And Childbirth Leave Lifetime Damage
No one should be forced to sustain these harms
Look at any digital or print publication that focuses on pregnancy, and you’ll see closeups of taut bellies enshrouded in gauzy white, or a newborn infant snuggled sweetly in a downy blanket. Sites created to be informative about the ages and stages of pregnancy maintain a sterile, bright soft pastel look, comparing embryos to rice grains, using only cartoon graphics to sketch out any harsher realities. Pregnancy and childbirth come across as perhaps an elongated quiet day at a spa, all lipsticked smiles and white linens and manicured fingernails.
These depictions of pregnancy and childbirth as beautiful, magnolia-hued uncomplicated experiences belie the bloody, literally shitty truth and the permanent harm both do to the body. Eliding reality via Instagram-style set-dressing of pregnancy and birth as soft, warm, desaturated, and dreamy also inadvertently feeds into the anti-abortion narrative in this country. Surely no one would need to avoid something so comforting and mellow and beautiful.
After all, if it’s about the right food and self-care and lighting and being peaceful and breathing just so and avoiding bleu cheese, then why are people making such a big fucking deal about forcing…
