Episode 70 Reality Check

What is performative parenting ? How can we help new parents discuss how they really feel and talk honestly rather than perpetuating the myth of perfection portrayed on social media?

Want to explore more?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/03/why-be-a-performative-insta-parent-when-your-kids-will-be-happy-in-front-of-the-tv
https://www.buzzfeed.com/mikespohr/these-comics-are-shockingly-real-about-postpartum-anxiety
http://matexp.org.uk/matexp-mindnbody-a-holistic-approach-to-perinatal-mental-health/

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  My beautiful artwork is thank to Anna Geyer www.newpossibilities.co.uk

Thank you all for listening,  My name is Florence Wilcock I am an NHS doctor working as an obstetrician, specialising in the care of both mother and baby during pregnancy and birth. If you have enjoyed my podcast please do continue to subscribe, rate, review and recommend my podcast on your podcast provider.
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If you want to get in touch to suggest topics, I love to hear your thoughts and ideas. You can find out more about me on Instagram @TheObsPod and email me on TheObsPod@gmail.com Please also check out #MatExp matexp.org.uk for ideas about how to improve maternity experience.
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Florence 0:00

Hello, my name's Florence. Welcome to the Obspod. I'm an NHS obstetrician hoping to share some thoughts and experiences about my working life. Perhaps you enjoy Call the Midwife, maybe birth fascinates you, or you're simply curious about what exactly an obstetrician is. You might be pregnant and preparing for birth. Perhaps you work in maternity and want to know what makes your obstetric colleagues tick, or you want some fresh ideas and inspiration. Whichever of these is the case, and for that matter anyone else that's interested, the Obspod is for you. Episode seventy Reality Check. Recently read an article in the newspaper on performative parenting. This is the idea of portraying parenthood as a series of perfect social media posts. And this trend really worries me because it extends right into pregnancy and birth. After I started my podcast, I joined Instagram. I'm not of a generation that naturally seems to be using Instagram. I joined it purely as a new way to connect with people and gain an audience, spread the word that there was perhaps something worth listening to. And maybe it's just the people I chose to follow. But a lot of the people I follow are people involved in the maternity world. And Instagram seems to really perpetuate this perfection. It is wonderful to see and hear amazing and positive birth stories and look at women glowing in pregnancy or poised impeccably with their newborn in the aftermath of a wonderful, exhilarating and fulfilling experience. But just in the same way, Glossy Magazine doesn't represent real life, neither does social media. I can't help feeling incredibly lucky that my kids were born 20 years ago when none of this existed, and I wasn't under that pressure to perform. In my photos after my births, I look pale, puffy, exhausted. I don't look like a glowing Madonna and child. I don't look like a strong Amazonian. I did not have to select an outfit, put on makeup, or brush my hair. There I am drained in my really sweaty nightshirt, a new mother in the raw. I remember seeing the Duchess of Cambridge leave hospital hours after the birth of Princess Charlotte, her hair just so, wearing a beautiful yellow summer dress and heels in the face of the world's media. I remember many of us at work feeling appalled. We discussed who had dressed her in such an inappropriate and thoughtless clothing, a pale yellow dress on which any hint of blood or mess would show up like a sore thumb. How was she comfortable? On those heels? We knew she must be wearing a thick jumbo maternity pad between her legs. And what were we, the great British public, expecting of her? A figurehead being set an impossible task just hours after she'd gone through birth. Is that not a private moment? Is that not a time when someone could be allowed to be just as they are and not have to put on a performance for the rest of us? I don't read gossip magazines much. I used to read them in the hairdresser, that's a thing of the past. But now I sometimes treat myself when I'm on holiday. I know all too well if a celebrity doesn't look just so, there'll be a picture going, look, this person's gained a few pounds of weight. Or there'll be a circle showing a sweat mark under an armpit, or comments about the hairstyle. With this social media and magazines, we've got very judgy, as my kids would say. Sometimes we have celebrities, for want of a better word, famous people give birth at my hospital. And obviously confidentiality is very important. This is their private life, their private moment. I'm actually really bad at recognising people, so often I will go in and treat someone without even realizing who they are. So occasionally I find that I open a magazine to discover someone whose birth I was at is doing their photo shoot with their new baby. It's in some ways lovely to see a couple and their new baby that I've looked after displayed on the pages, happy, describing how much they're enjoying new parenthood, welcoming their baby and showing them off to the world. But on some occasions, I find it really at odds with the clinical experience that I know that couple have been through. Perhaps I ran into their room for a hemorrhage after the woman gave birth. It wasn't glamorous. We were all there giving medication and acting quickly to try and prevent excessive bleeding. It wasn't a perfect birth. Or maybe she needed an assisted vaginal birth or an emergency caesarean. And sometimes this is portrayed in these interviews as high drama. The doctors and midwives were heroes, they saved my baby. I'm so grateful I can't thank staff enough. And obviously that can be true, and if that's how it felt to that woman, as her genuine experience, then obviously that's valid. But that also perpetuates this kind of glamorous view of birth. Either it's all amazing, natural, beautiful, serene, or it's life-saving heroics with nothing in between. So it's interesting on these rare occasions when I get a glimpse of what the real birth was like, and then how it's portrayed in a magazine interview. I've mentioned in earlier episodes the importance of being present in the room at the moment of birth and that immediate aftermath that Dr. Rachel Reed refers to as enchantment, where the mother and baby are bonding and becoming enchanted with one another. These days people whip out a phone. They're taking photos, and that's great to remember those moments, and indeed I've got photos my husband took with a camera in those days of my babies the moment they were born on the Resuscitare. And that's lovely. Lovely memories and lovely to show them now they're grown up. But these days it's immediate WhatsApp photos, putting them on Facebook, the outside world invading what's going on in those very intimate first few moments of life. It's true there are some campaigns on social media that have tried to counteract this perfection. There have been campaigns about post pregnancy bellies, stretch marks, caesarean scars. And these are very laudable. They definitely provide some balance to the posed and perfection pictures. But in some ways I feel these are no less of a problem for their exhibitionist nature. Is there nothing private anymore? Do we have to share every aspect of our bodies and every waking moment with everyone else? And don't get me wrong, I may not have Facebook, but I am an avid tweeter, as my husband and family will tell you. But I try and keep it to my professional life and keep my personal life for home. In my work every day I see women for whom pregnancy is a struggle. They come nauseated, bloated, exhausted. It's an emotional roller coaster. Not everyone is excited, thrilled, beautiful and blooming. If you come to my clinic you'll meet women of all shapes and sizes. Some are impeccably made up and dressed beautifully. Some are wearing clothes held together with safety pins, perhaps slip on shoes because of swollen feet and ankles, or their legs riddled with varicus veins. It's quite rare that I do a clinic without at least one woman bursting into tears. They may be afraid, overwhelmed, apprehensive. Their body shape is changing and will never be the same. First time parents are transitioning through a major life event about to take total responsibility for an incredibly vulnerable baby. I remember being the first of my friends and family to have a baby in my generation. And I remember phoning my sister after my first baby arrived and telling her it's a conspiracy. No one tells you what it is really truly like because no one would ever have a baby ever again. So whilst parenthood and having a baby is one of the most rewarding and amazing things I have ever done in my life, it's certainly the most challenging. And it's a marathon. It requires patience, dedication, commitment. The end of pregnancy and the birth of that baby is just the beginning. And as we go on this journey that lasts years, do we really need to add continual demonstration of our success as parents to an already pressurized situation? Breast is best is all very well a public health slogan Well meaning and with good evidence. But what about women for whom that is a steep ask? Do our well meaning efforts make them feel guilty and inadequate? Reality so frequently doesn't measure up to our hopes and dreams. Let's think now about the zesty bit. Can we stop perpetuating the myth? Not add guilt to the mix Some of the tears in my clinic are women relieved, relieved that they can talk about how they're feeling and that someone is listening and accepting that actually it isn't all straightforward it isn't easy and that it's alright not to feel excited and happy all the time in pregnancy, that there are many other emotions and that it's alright to feel them. Today I want you to think if you're a healthcare professional about how you enable women to share how they're actually feeling, how you give them that safe space and reassurance. And if you're a pregnant woman or new parent, know that there are many other people feeling just like you. And there is help if you talk to your midwife, health visitor, GP, obstetrician. And if you're talking to other new parents, be honest with one another. How are you really feeling? What's really going on? Rather than feeling intimidated by the perfection you see on their social media feeds. I'm going to end today with a poem written by Jill Phillips as part of the Who's Shoes set of lived experience scenarios that we developed as part of our mind and body perinatal mental health project. Here goes Perfect Mother Social media is a blessing and a curse. Other people's lives seem perfect, which make me feel worse. The constant bombardment mums who've got their stuff together Immaculate homes, happy kids, everyone smiling and laughing. I know it's not the whole picture unreal it's the way it makes me feel. So I too conceal how things really are and join the conspiracy, never spoiling the mix, posting smiling, upbeat perfect pics. I do hope you've enjoyed listening to this episode of the Obspod. Feel free to contact me on Twitter at FW Maternity or at the Obspod to ask me questions, give me topics for future episodes or let me know what you think. It's absolutely fantastic when you get in touch. I really enjoy reading your comments. As usual, I've tried to include in the programme notes some extra reading about this particular topic, both for professionals working in maternity care and for pregnant women using services. I'd like to reassure you that although I'm talking about my experiences working in maternity care, I take confidentiality very seriously and do not give any personal information about any of my patients. If you've enjoyed listening, I'd love you to recommend the OBSPod to friends or colleagues, and please do leave me a review on whichever podcast directory you find my episodes. Many thanks for listening.