Why ALL birth stories matter (and deserve to be told)

The concept of a birth story changed once I’d given birth; all of a sudden people were honest about their births with me. I’d never heard birth told this way. Though their previous silence was well intentioned, I’m not sure it was wise…

What birth stories do people want to hear?

“So how was it?” was the sentence I heard most frequently when my first baby was born, and I loved hearing it.

Her birth had been really bloody hard, but I didn’t just relish retelling it, I needed to share it…

When I retold the story of my little one’s very long, quite stressful and totally-not-to-plan birth, I got to re-live it. In doing so, I made sense of the hard parts and understood my own feelings about it. In people hearing it, I found solidarity from people who knew what birth really was. 

Because - and this is important - it was only people who’d given birth who asked me with the intention of really listening to what I had to say. Friends who had not given birth, asked me whilst cooing over my little one. But friends who had gone through a birth experience, asked and looked me in the eye. 

Giving birth opened the floodgates on talking about the reality of birth. In these conversations with friends and family, the truest sense of sisterhood emerged. 

And as great as that was, I couldn’t help wondering why I’d never heard the reality of their stories before. I knew where and how they’d given birth, but now I saw that so much had been glossed over. 

• timeframes

• pain levels

• the emotional rollercoaster

• their coping mechanisms… 

Surely, these would have been helpful to me as I prepared for the birth of my first? 

And so I asked them why they’d not felt able to share them with me before hand. 

“I didn’t want to scare you…” is what most replied. 

Why do birth stories matter?

Birth stories matter because they’re real & as a story-telling species, talking about them teaches us what to expect in reality.

But for so many of us, that’s the very reason we choose not to share them.

Ever since the Peel Report (1967) promoted the idea that hospitals were the safest place to birth, despite the lack of evidence for it, birth has moved out of the home. Therefore it moved out of the eyes and ears of the younger generations who previously witnessed and were involved in it.

As the births moved away from society, so did the stories of them. No longer were we involved in the stories; we couldn’t see them unfolding before us and around us and so birth becomes an unknown. 

The issue is that childbearing people are instinctively drawn to stories of birth; it’s nature’s way of preparing us for what we want to do in our own futures. And so, birth was - and still is - a topic that we want to see and hear about. 

But as real birth has gone behind the closed doors of a hospital, fictionalised birth has taken it’s place. The generation that followed the 1967 report have been raised on a birth-diet filled with: 

- highly edited ‘reality’ TV 

- dramatic hollywood films

- comedy-focused TV shows 

And this has consequences.

Repeatedly, studies highlight that the stories we hear are an absolutely vital part of the human experience…

• Birth stories prepare others for what’s to come:

  ‘birth stories are a significant part of the landscape of birth for childbearing women’, (Kay, L. Downe, S.  Thomson, G. et al, 2017)

• Birth stories help the person telling that story to process their experience…

  ‘When women share their birth stories, they decide which aspects of the narrative to share. This selection process constructs a new essence of their experience. Other less significant aspects of the story fade in their memory.’ 

• By sharing birth through first-hand stories, the unknown is removed and the reality is accepted and understood by those yet to do it…

  ‘During the process of actively seeking and sharing knowledge, fears are lessened and a sense of control over childbirth may be achieved’ (Zwelling, 2000)

Now. Think of this within the context of a timeline of social change. 

Stories of birth have always been and always will be of keen interest to humans; it’s an innate part of our species. For millennia, birth stories were openly shared, collectively witnessed and a very normal part of life. But as tribal social structures were replaced by independent living, birth became more private. While still in the home, birth was still witnessed - just by fewer people… 

… until it became a thing witnessed by only the highly trained and immediately involved few (aka the parents). Where real birth in all its raw and intense glory is unknown and unknowable.  

And humans fear the unknown. 

But I don’t want my birth story to put anyone off…

Yes, real birth stories shatter the illusions sold to us by the media. 

Yes: they have the potential for shock and awe. 

Yes: they might change the way people see us and even see ourselves. 

This is exactly the point of them. To not tell them is a travesty.

Pregnancy and birth push us to our absolute limits: physically, emotionally, socially… this is what birth does; this is what birth is. Arguably, it does that so to enable us to absolutely transform who we are and to take us from person to parent, from maiden to mother.

By sharing your birth story, you not only help others to prepare for it, but you also celebrate it.   

But we live in a society that isn’t used to sharing the truth about birth & that sets a precedent of ‘just holding back’ the scary bits and filtering it to make it PG friendly.

It does invite the question, who is this actually saving? It’s absolutely not you: you lived it and carry the memories. They’re not going anywhere. And it’s not your friends either: by denying them reality, we leave the next generation unprepared for it.

Of course, we’re not out to scare people willy-nilly but this is a reason to choose your time, place and audience; it’s not a reason to stay quiet. 

This is your story and your experience. If you feel a need or desire to share your story, what matters most is your comfort. Once you’ve found the person, situation and time to share your story, it’s about confidence. 

Reasons to tell your birth story…

It doesn’t matter whether you gave birth five minutes ago, five days ago, five weeks, years or decades ago, if you’re feeling the need to tell your story, it’s time to tell it.

And before you convince yourself out of it, here’s a reminder of why…

Sharing your story, honestly and in as much detail as you want to, is a great thing to do. And here’s why…  

1. Humans are storytellers: we learn best from what we hear those close to us talk about. Sharing your story in the right way will help your friends and family prepare for theirs…

2.Your birth is big; you deserve to be heard. However your baby landed, you will have gone through an incredible and life-changing experience. You have experienced and achieved enormous amounts & this deserves to be celebrated.  

3. To process is to appreciate: when we hold things in our heads, they bounce around and become chaotic. Whether your birth was positive, negative or a little bit of everything, airing your birth experience externally - be it on paper or aloud - helps us to make sense of what we have lived.  

Finding a comfortable, non-judgemental space to tell your story in it’s entirety is absolutely vital.

Knowing that you can say what you like, in as much detail as you like, without anyone telling you that you’re being silly, dramatic or that you remembered it wrong it so key for you to be able to process your birth honestly.

This is something that we do at ‘The Nest’ every single week (we don’t prompt it, people just share as and when they wish!), but if this isn’t your thing an online ‘Power Hour’ with me might do just the trick…

But however you do it, whenever you do it and whoever you do it with: tell your story. Your experience deserves to be heard.