Can you Birth Like a Princess? Or is Kate Middleton presenting an unrealistic image?
Kate Middleton has certainly caused a lot of comment in the media with her gorgeous post-birth photos yet again..
Many media commentators and members of the general public have been astonished that she looked so amazing and left the hospital “so soon”.
But is she presenting an unrealistic picture of childbirth?
The media and our modern culture love to display childbirth as scary and overwhelming and circulate “horror stories”.
So no wonder they are struggling with the healthy positive image that Kate is now portraying.
A lot of people are saying that it is Kate’s hair and makeup team that should take the credit for how Kate looked only after birth. But this is not giving Kate, or William, credit for any of the great decisions they made around the birth of their babies.
If every couple made these great decisions they could all birth like princesses.
When we educate ourselves and make conscious decisions about the birth we want, we end up having much better births. And then if we birth the way nature intended, and release all the hormones nature is wanting to flood us with, we too can feel amazing after birth.
Hair and makeup teams may help a little. But we really could FEEL as amazing as Kate looks, which is more important.
In fact, we are MEANT to feel amazing.
So what were these great decisions that you too could make?
1. Kate and Will decided that birth was a natural, normal physiological process.
This is obvious by the fact that they chose midwifery-led care over obstetric care.
They didn’t shun medical care all together as there were obstetricians on standby. But they kept them at arm’s length and did not end up need them.
Midwives are the expert in normal birth and obstetricians are the expert in abnormal birth. It is well documented that midwifery-led care lowers intervention rates, and most significantly, caesarean section rates.
And if more couples realised this and only went to an obstetrician if complication arose, more women would be having births without unnecessary intervention.
I have written this blog on common interventions that occur in most hospital births.
2. Kate decided to prepare herself for a calm, positive birth.
It is widely reported that Kate used hypnobirthing techniques for the birth of George and Charlotte so was able to draw on these techniques again.
Hypnobirthing not only reduces the fear of birth, it also gives couples techniques to feel more in control of their birth and calm no matter what is happening.
There are many programmes that can teach hypnosis for birth.
In Australia, we a so lucky to have the Hypnobirthing Australia™ Model which has been specifically designed to reflect the Australian experience.
3. They let their babies come when they are ready.
One journalist described Charlotte as being “fashionably late”.
Wouldn’t it be great if it did become the “fashion” for babies to come when they are ready and not on some artificial “due date”?
I think the pressure on the Royal Couple must have been enormous.
Imaging how the average couple feels when they go past their “due date” and are constantly bombarded with texts and messages asking “have you had the baby yet?” Now times that by 1000s with the whole world’s media watching and waiting.
The couple even went as far as saying their baby was due “sometime in April”.
With so many Perth babied being induced, this was an amazing message to send to pregnant mums and their partners.
When I posted a comment on Facebook about how Kate looked in the first post-birth photos, I had some mums post their post-birth photos.
They all looked radiant.
They may not have had immaculate hair and makeup, but the looked the picture of health and power.
So No, Kate did not present an unrealistic portrayal of childbirth and you too can birth like a princess.
