As if pregnant women didn't have enough to contend with when preparing to give birth, they now risk being ridiculed online.
Another user wrote that the tweet ‘concerns’ her, adding ‘These are all reasonable desires that can and should be honored if it is safe. Rather than rejecting birth plans we should be developing them with birthing people. This is a great opportunity to discuss how to handle complications if they occur. My birth plans were not much different and my physician made every decision with me. Both of my babies are beautiful adults now.
Milli acknowledges this isn't the first time that birth plans have been ridiculed - both on social media and in popular culture. She references a passage from Adam Kay’s bestselling memoirwhich reads ‘Patient HJ needs an emergency caesarean section for failure to progress in labour. This has not come as a surprise.
All this indicates how pregnant women continue to be treated with a lack of respect, both inside and outside the delivery room. Research byreleased earlier this year found a ‘concerning decline’ in women’s experience with maternity services. They found that 63% of women felt they were always able to get help during labour and birth compared with 72% in 2019, while about 77% said that if they raised a concern during labour and birth, they felt it was taken seriously, down from 81% in 2017.