So much yes to this.
Hilary Duff is now a mum of three.
The actress gave birth to her third child, daughter Mae James, a few weeks ago, and Duff, who opted to have a water birth at home, has spoken about how important it was for her to have her nine-year-old son, Luca, there when she gave birth.
In a chat with the host on the Informed Pregnancy Podcast, the Younger star, 33, talks about Mae’s birth. Duff — who also shares daughter Banks, 2, with husband Matthew Koma — explains why she wanted her son to be present for the birth of his little sister.
Duff says Luca, whom she shares with ex-husband Mike Comrie, made it to the room “right as I was pulling the baby out” and Banks arrived “after the fact.”
“He wanted to be there for it, but it happened so fast he missed it,” explains the mom, sharing that her labour and delivery was just over three hours long.
“It was kind of important for me [for Luca to be there] because I’m really big on being open and honest with him about how strong women are and what childbirth looks like,” Duff explains.
“He knows all about periods and it’s important for me to normalize that conversation with him for all the women that are going to be in his life.”
“I think that sometimes a 9-year-old boy is like, ‘Well, men have bigger muscles,’ and, like, yeah, but we bring life into this world. We move a baby through our body,” she adds. “There is a big topic of conversation in the house right now: equality, and strength coming from different places besides your muscles or whatever.”
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The actress adds that she also wanted her son to understand how important it is to listen to women when it comes to birth and birthing experiences, and how there are many ways to bring a baby into the world.
“I want him to someday, when he’s ready to have a child with his partner or wife or whatever, I want him to be able to respect the way that she wants to be able to have a baby, and if that’s at home, that can be at home, if that’s in a hospital, it will be hospital,” she says. “There are many different ways.”
Speaking about her two-year-old daughter, Banks, Duff says she couldn’t really have her around as much as she wanted to during her labour with Mae, as everything happened so quickly.
“I was like, ‘Someone get her out of here,’ because the contractions were … just coming so fast and it was hard for me to— With Luca, when I was in labour with [Banks], he was in and out and I was hanging out with him and we were cuddling and it wasn’t as hard right away,” she recalls.
“With this one, I couldn’t handle [Banks] not knowing what was going on, wanting me.”
