Birthing a baby is – for most women – the single most intense and, most often, physically painful thing they will do in their lives.
It is full-on. Your body is literally trying to squeeze out an entire, fully-grown baby – and it requires all your concentration and energy and will.
And sometimes, when all this is going on and your baby is going down through the birth canal, you might actually end up pooping too, as the baby puts pressure on your intestine. And while this might feel embarrassing and terrifying, it is, in fact, extremely common. Every midwife will tell you so.
"If women poop during the delivery they are using the right muscles,” Dr Christine Greves, a doctor at the Center for Obstetrics and Gynecology at Orland Health, tells
Today.com.
What's more — it seems pooping during labour might even help babies develop their microbiome, the bacteria that lives
on and
in people, which helps with everything from digestion to being able to fight off colds. Newborn babies are born without a microbiome, and as the baby travels through the vaginal canal she’s exposed to mum’s bacteria.
However, as common as pooping during labour is, one mum recently took to
Reddit to reveal how her husband mocked and humiliated her for accidentally pooping when she was giving birth to their baby.
The 25-year-old first time mum says her birth experience was ‘pretty traumatic’ as she had no idea what to expect. She says labour was the most difficult time of her life, and she was in pain for hours.
Initially, her mum was by her side, but when she left her husband remained with her throughout the labour. It was while he was supporting her that she did something so many labouring mums do – she had a bowel movement.
“I did something so embarrassing in the delivery room, I pooped myself which was unexpected,” she explained on the forum.
“It was embarrassing and although my medical team were very professional about it, my husband couldn’t help himself and started laughing about it later.”
She says her insensitive (read: absolute knob-head) husband even told both of their families about the incident.
“In fact, I found it embarrassing and I already told him to stop bringing it up especially when he started joking about getting me diapers for my “opsies!!” It got really tiring and chipped away from my self-esteem and confidence.”
Oh, and this childish excuse of a dad wasn't finished yet.
“We were with his parents celebrating new year’s eve together when I excused myself to the bathroom. While I was getting up he made a quick remark and said, ‘Oh yeah, you should go quickly because we don’t want any accidents just like the one we had at the hospital, you know what I mean?’ While winking at me. His family actually laughed and BIL commented, ‘Good one!'”
Completely understandably, the new mum eventually lost the plot (we would have long since lost it, to be fair!) and let him have it.
“I was astonished and so angry and ashamed, I literally just lost it on him and yelled at the top of my lungs calling him a cruel insensitive jerk to be using the difficult experience of birthing his child as a joking matter and humiliating me in front of everybody. He was shocked, staring back at me and not saying a word."
The mum explains that she then stormed off to the bathroom until they left the in-laws house, but once they got in the car, her husband started giving out to her for talking to him like she did – in front of his family.
" I said I couldn’t hold my tongue for that long and after he kept joking about an embarrassing thing when I told him to stop. He said he was just joking and I went overboard with my reaction and also, I should’ve sucked it up and waited until we got home so we could address this privately and I could even yell at him as long as I wanted."
She continues:
“We argued about it after we got home and he kept saying I humiliated him in front of his family during the celebratory evening by being petty and trying to one-up him. He even said I should’ve laughed along not fly off the handle like that. Did I overreact?”
