So Teresa Palmer had a baby. Which is nice.
Babies are Good News, and we all love an announcement, whether it’s on our Facebook feed or the evening news.
We want to know the details. The sex, and the name. But do we want to know how they entered the world?
Teresa obviously thinks so, because she felt the need to add this information to the announcement of the arrival of her baby boy:
“Thank you God for blessing us with the most divine gift of our baby son Bodhi Rain Palmer born safely & naturally.”
“Naturally”. Thanks for that bit of info, Teresa.
Here’s Miranda Kerr in the official announcement of the arrival of her boy Flynn:
“I gave birth to him naturally; without any pain medication and it was a long, arduous and difficult labour.”
Or the always-relatable Gisele Bundchen, who said of the birth of her first child, Benjamin:
“My delivery was in a bath tub, in water. I wanted to have a home birth. I wanted to be very aware and present during the birth… I didn’t want to be drugged up. So I did a lot of preparation, I did yoga and meditation, so I managed to have a very tranquil birth at home.”
And let’s take a moment to savour this next line: “It didn’t hurt in the slightest.”
Really? Not in the slightest?
Let’s be clear: I am not criticising these women, or the way that they gave birth. Like anyone who has been through it, I have ultimate respect for anyone who has lived through bringing a baby into the world, however it goes down.
But here’s the thing: by choosing to reveal the nature of their births, these women are telling us what they consider to be important. And the fact that they weren’t ‘on drugs‘ and that they were able to delivery vaginally is clearly right up there on the priority list.
Teresa Palmer walks the walk. She co-authors a blog about health and wellness, so it was obviously a big part of her plan to have a ‘natural’ birth, and it’s great that she got live the experience she was hoping for.
But really, what’s a ‘natural’ birth anyway? I assume that what these mums mean is that they didn’t have a c-section. But do you still get to say you had a ‘natural’ birth if you had an episiotomy? An epidural? Ventouse?