In 2020, 287,000 mothers died during live births according to the WHO. To put it in perspective, roughly 703,000 people commit suicide per year, something that we take much more seriously than ‘haha funny shirt guy’ here. The first statistic doesn’t even include mothers who suffer from post-partum depression and commit suicide.
The biggest lies told to girls is the trivialization of childbirth. Imagine if your pelvis was forced apart, your perinium torn, your muscles pulling cramps for 12-24 hours straight, piss and shit spilling out of you, your privates in full view and constantly touched by strangers. After all that you are expected to be fine, happy, elated even, to act as though none of agony you went through has shredded your mind. You are expected to smile and hold your child as if that is guaranteed to magically resolve any lingering thoughts about the body horror you just went through. Of course, this doesn’t always happens. Countless mothers develop post-partum depression and even commit suicide.
If we took live births even half as seriously as suicide maybe we can better support those who are predisposed to PPD and prevent self harm.
Inb4 someone says ‘lighten up’ or ‘calm down’, think about the relevance of your experiences before commenting. Lemmy’s userbase is 77% men and sometimes it shows (see the other comment on this post).