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Tiktok, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram… your Aunty Susan: if you’re pregnant or a parent, there’s always someone, somewhere willing to tell you how do to things better.
You know that’s their experience, not yours; you know you want to do this your way… but how can you do this without the feeling of ‘fight’ or the crippling self-doubt? It’s all about balance…
Our generation of baby-makers are a whole new kettle of fish: as children of the 80s, 90s and 00s, we have been raised not just to take control of our own lives but to expect the choices we make to be respected and feel confident about them.
Until, that is, we see those two little blue lines on a wee-soaked stick.
In that moment (and I remember this thought so very clearly when I discovered I was pregnant with my first baby), our brains tend to switch gear.
We go from thinking “I am going to do…” to “well, what should I do next?”
The questions come thick and fast:
In one sense this is totally understandable: pregnancy feels enormous! The weight of responsibility, excitement and fear is naturally going to create nervousness, especially the first time, which can only grow from week to week.
But, looking at it on paper like that, one thing really strikes me: the questions we ask are not new. Most of us have been eating, drinking, communicating and sleeping since we were infants ourselves. We’ve been able to assess our own physical safety on modes of transportation since our teen years (at least!)
The questions we ask first of all, normally have very little to do with pregnancy or the baby, but our own sense of being. Those two blue lines turn everything upside down and, to settle the rising sense of panic, we’re inclined to look to those more ‘in the know’ than us to find the right answer.
The phrase, ‘start as you mean to go on!’ is not bandied around for no reason; it’s pretty normal for humans to continue doing the thing they started doing because we love what feels familiar to us. But this has really big knock-on effect for pregnancy, birth and parenting.
The problem is, seeking the opinions of others and going along blindly with what they say, sometimes because they have more skills and experience and sometimes because they just feel like the right person to ask, leads us to a tricky situation:
Before we know it, we risk losing what matters to us, and what we feel is right, in an equation of other people’s priorities and experiences.
Yes, you probably will. But not for the reasons you might think…
Dana Raphael first coined the term Matrescence in her 1970s book Being Female: Reproduction, Power, and Change. The term explains the huge changes that mothers undergo biologically, socially, culturally and hormonally during pregnancy, birth and the first few years of parenthood. Similar to adolescence, it’s the way our bodies, brains and mindsets evolve to help us work within the next stage of life: raising other, much smaller and initially less capable human beings.
Much like those bumpy early teen years, this period can be really challenging and filled with the kind of self-doubts that ask us to question whether we can eat baked beans during pregnancy or not. Again, this is totally logical: our whole frame of context is changing and we need the reassurance of trusted, knowledgeable people around us to help us find a sense of stability in this time.
But, much like with the teenage transition, how we approach decision making during this period matters too.
As we change, we learn what we’re capable of, what our strengths are: these are all vital bits of knowledge to carry and reflect on when our babies arrive.
This is really linked into the decision-making process during pregnancy and for birth: what was once a case of “what are my options and what do I want to do?” is no longer that simple as we have to consider the needs and consequences of our small human.
And we really don’t ever want to get it wrong: getting it wrong is absolutely not an option. In that mindset, we go for what we feel will be most right – and that’s where the comfort zone of what your second cousin Karen did, or what Shirley-from-next-door-who’s-got-ten-kids thinks is best, or what that stranger on Net Mums suggested, can really help.
However, the problem here is that people are all different: Karen’s baby, Shirley’s tribe, even you were different to the small person you’re carrying right now. Chances are what was right for them will not necessarily be right for your situation. And as we said before, failure is not an option.
And so, it all becomes bit of a minefield…
In a world where we are constantly bombarded with information and knowledge and suggestions that are all claiming to be right, how can we find a route forward that we can trust?
Easy: the key to this is not about doing one thing or the other – it’s about creating a balance between knowledge and our own, very powerful intuition.
To us modern folk, this is often a skill that needs to be learnt: we’ve spent so much of our lives navigating decisions with a narrow personal focus, that the sheer scope of responsibility for making decisions relating not only to us but our babies can be scary. But these five steps can really help to build habits that’ll establish a healthy balance…
Question the pain points: when those moments of confusion or cluelessness come up, take some time to think about why you’re feeling that way. What doesn’t sit right in your gut – is it that you are scared of a specific outcome? Or that the risk of failure is too high? Or that you don’t really know what your options are? Digging into this will help you to be confident in the next stage and produce confident kids!
Seek varied and reliable information: once you know what you need to find the answer for, or what you really need to find out or decide, speak to the people (plural) that can give you a really clear and reliable picture. This can be doctors, midwives, health visitors, doulas, friends, family, co-workers, but they should be totally trusted and not in it for the fear mongering or trauma processing… seeing an issue from all sides, presented in a fair way, will help you to get an unbiased picture of what the options really are.
Ask the questions that help: once you’ve got your options, use your B.R.A.I.N: for each course of action. Weigh up the Benefits, Risks and Alternatives. Then tune in into your Intuition – where does your gut sit most comfortably? But don’t leave it there. What would happen if you did Nothing? Digging into the options with these questions will help you to weigh up the options with a personal, intuitive and informed response.
Dedicate thinking time: imagine it, visualise it, critique it. It’s easy to make decisions when the issue is abstract. For example, thinking about how you will feed a baby whilst you’re still pregnant, or exploring your pain relief options for labour before you’ve experienced a contraction. Taking some time to mull over the information you’ve found, imagining yourself living that experience, may help you to deepen an intuitive decision.
Remember you are an individual and that matters: above all, it’s really important to remember that you are you, and you are in control. The decisions you make, deliberate on or choose to delay are totally legitimate; the parenting style you choose to employ; the path through your pregnancy, birth and confident parenting adventure is your own. You don’t need to justify that to anyone.
Gemma is an antenatal teacher, birth & postnatal doula working in Cornwall.
A mum-of-two young girls, the decision to create ‘Born to Birth Cornwall’ came from Gemma’s experiences trying to navigate the endless self-doubt, confusion and guilt that seemed to appear at every turn during her pregnancies, births and postnatal periods.
But after years of enquiry, learning and training, Gemma now specialises in helping families find the confidence they need to make the decisions that work for them through birth planning workshops, antenatal classes, doula support and parent events.
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