If the movies are to be believed than the traditional birthing position is a woman on her back screaming in agony. Founder of the positive birth movement Milli Hill, wants to change all that.
She writes in yesterday’s Telegraph about coining the #birthjusthappened which has quickly gone viral.
“The fact that birth can be positive is something that’s usually kept quite hidden from women,” says Milli. “If the only time you’ve seen someone giving birth was on One Born Every Minute, then you’d think it was absolutely horrific, no wonder people are terrified, but birth doesn’t have to be like that.”
.@birthpositive this is me & our youngest son seconds after he was born in water at home #birthjusthappened #MatExp pic.twitter.com/V8LPJbAmm2
— Rachel (@enduringdelight) March 15, 2015
Hill was inspired after seeing photographer, Jenny Lewis’ series of photographs documenting the first 24 hours of life in her book One Day Young. Hill wanted to offer a different narrative than that of pain and fear of the unknown and the images certainly do that. The woman are photographed looking exhilarated, tired, joyful and empowered.
My seconds-old daughter after an exhausting but exhilarating water birth #birthjusthappened pic.twitter.com/gbCdypadhF — Amy Hall (@amyhallknitwear) March 15, 2015
“There are bound to be some who condemn the photos. Some will argue that the images depicted ‘get women’s hopes up’ or even that they are unfair to those who have had difficult or traumatic births”, says Hill.
Though, in fact, because this movement is created by women themselves there’s a huge spectrum of experience represented from home births to water births to caesarian sections. Having had an unwanted c-section myself I have always felt a bit robbed of the birth experience so it’s nice to see these experiences included.
Seeing many types of birthing experiences offered by woman will change our perception of birth and will surely go some way towards dispelling expectant mums fears and assuaging the grief of mothers who may have experienced profoundly traumatic births.
“Obviously you can’t control birth to the nth degree, just as you can’t control anything completely, but you can maximise your chances of doing things differently. Hopefully, the #BirthJustHappened photos will give women different expectations about how birth can be.”
Amazing just-born mum-and-baby pics. Just wow! *passes tissues* http://t.co/1G5OPOiPoX #BirthJustHappened pic.twitter.com/V88zWR8h2B
— MadeForMums (@MadeForMums) March 20, 2015
Image via the Positive Birth Movement
