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Pregnancy

11th Jan 2018

Man says women don’t need epidurals, gets eaten alive by Twitter

Things got ugly fast.

Anna O'Rourke

child birth

“I’d like to break both of his legs and then tell him that he doesn’t need pain medication.”

Some absolute misfortune was subjected to the wrath of many women (and even some men) online this week for suggesting that epidurals are unnecessary.

The man, who likely doesn’t own a uterus and so has probably never had to give birth, shared his thoughts on the matter on Reddit, a conveniently anonymous platform for such a controversial opinion.

“Personal opinion: My wife gave birth to two babies, 9lbs 10oz (10 hours labour) and 8lbs 6oz (only 2hrs for the second baby). No epidural. Women don’t NEED them at all. Never have. Since we only started using them in modern medicine. But hey, what do I know. I’m just a dude who held her hand through it twice.”

Oh boy. A man casting doubt over both a woman’s right to bodily autonomy and modern medicine was never going to go down well online, was it?

The post was picked up by a Twitter user and prompted a fairly aggressive response from other folks online.