The not so Great side of Pregnancy Society is not telling us

Pregnancy is presented to the public, especially women, as pleasant, exciting, and the greatest miracle of life. While it’s indeed life’s greatest miracle, still, many things can go wrong and should be considered. I experienced these while spending some time with my sister and caring for her months-old baby. This article talks about different issues women go through when pregnant and societal expectations.

 

Physical issues 

My sister went through many body changes. She gained approximately 17 kilograms and consequently got gestational diabetes; according to statistics, this condition affects 1 out of 10 women, but strangely, other pregnant women around her experienced it. This condition made exercising impossible; due to advanced pregnancy, including having a problem with urination. Pregnancy also gives you an abnormally large pain in your hips and insomnia- which goes on even after having the baby when you need to breastfeed them in the middle of the night.

 

 After she gave birth, she mentioned it was a “traumatic experience” due to the tearing up of the skin and had no choice but to tear it up further during a twenty-hour long and tiring birth process. The aftermath resulted in bleeding and pains. However, these were not the worst parts of the pregnancy and birth, not in comparison to the dehumanization she had to go through. The moment a woman becomes pregnant, there is more priority on the baby; and constant commentaries by the public that treat the woman like a baby container rather than a human. 

 

Dehumanization and sexism 

Doctors aren’t the most pleasant ones, quite the contrary. On one of her appointments with the doctor, she was told that the baby did not move and got blamed for not having breakfast; she had to eat even when it was not necessary. After visiting another doctor, she mentioned she was “getting too fat beyond repair, and she should’ve watched it more”- although she was not warned about her weight by the same doctor before this date and ended the conversation by calling her “irresponsible”. 

Furthermore, the doctor criticized her for feeling uncomfortable with the previous doctor and told her to stop seeing her as she was no longer comfortable attending to my sister. Her doctor frequently criticized her regardless of what she ate or did not eat. To top things off, her baby daddy got angry at her for posting a negative review about the doctor. He believed it could affect their patient-doctor relationship, but that was the right thing to do after she was insulted and humiliated. My sister also did not eat lunch early because she was upset with the doctor and her partner told her that “you are killing my baby.” Other constant commentaries she got were: “you are not feeding your baby well, you caused your mastitis fever for yourself,” “you are harming your baby by going out in the winter,” and more constant things that limit your life.

 

Poor Information and Breastfeeding

Martha mentioned that she felt “like a cow” in the hospital; and after her body’s distortion, everything was dedicated to and for her baby. For me, this shows that no matter the support and encouragement you may get for being pregnant from your partner, the focus changes to the baby during this phase, and the life changes the woman goes through are not considered at all. Such actions can make you begin to view your relationships with others differently.

 

She was to start breastfeeding the baby without giving her a chance to choose to give her baby the bottle. She had a fever three times in the last two months due to the accumulation of milk. The nursing phase can lead to inequality between partners; as the mother need to breastfeed her baby every (approximately) two hours for the first two months, including at night which will cause the mother to spend most of the time with the baby and this do cause bruises on the nipples.

 

In summary, despite the excitement that comes with pregnancy, there are challenges associated with it that society does not discuss. Breastfeeding is seen as an obligatory duty even when it is difficult for the mother to keep up with it. Although society expects sacrifices from mothers, still, women should be able to make healthy choices as you need the mother to be in a sane state to care for the child. This article states that there are more inequalities we know of that shouldn’t be encouraged, and pregnancy does not have to be sugar-coated. Unfortunately, women’s rights still have a long way to go on how they are viewed in society.

 

Written by: Laura Gray