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Sharing Birth Stories: Yea or Nay?

My friend recently posted all the details of her 39-hour labor on a website run by actress and former talk show host Ricki Lake!

What is the world coming to?

Seriously.

Apparently, Ricki Lake has an online community designed to allow moms to share their birthing experiences. It’s called MyBestBirth.com and it thrives on women revealing every gory detail involved in the labor and delivery process. The site also features information about pregnancy, natural birth and holistic parenting.

Personally, I’m not a big fan of birthing stories. Whereas I appreciate that some moms’ stories contain extremely helpful information, I get a bit squeamish while reading about women giving birth in cars along busy highways and others, who are forced to have catch their own newborns covered with amniotic fluid, blood, and vernix, on their kitchen floor because they couldn’t make it to the hospital in time.

That said, I fully admit to having shared some details of my daughter’s birth story on this blog, but I stopped short of divulging all that went down behind closed doors. After all, the world doesn’t need to know every.single.detail.

Of course, if I were Anetta Beckwith, then I might think twice about keeping my lips sealed.

The Milwaukee mom recently gave birth to a baby boy who weighed in at a whopping 12 1/2 pounds. Jordan Tucker was born last Wednesday at Columbia St. Mary’s Women’s Hospital, and more than a week later, the hospital is still buzzing about his birth. According to news reports, Jordan is the largest baby ever born at the hospital.

Fortunately for Beckwith, Jordan was delivered via cesarean section after being a week overdue. Shortly before she gave birth, doctors told the mom that her baby would probably be about 10 pounds. No one was prepared for his actual size, not even Beckwith’s obstetrician, Dr. Paul Burstein, who told reporters after the birth: “This was way beyond the 99th percentile…It really looked like a kid who could really skip nursery school, and go to kindergarten.”

Baby Jordan is reportedly wearing 6-month-old-sized clothing.

No word on whether he is sleeping like a 6-month-old.

By the way, the average newborn typically weighs in at 7.5 pounds.

Would you go public with the details of your child’s birth?

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This entry was posted in Viewpoints by Michele Cheplic. Bookmark the permalink.

About Michele Cheplic

Michele Cheplic was born and raised in Hilo, Hawaii, but now lives in Wisconsin. Michele graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a degree in Journalism. She spent the next ten years as a television anchor and reporter at various stations throughout the country (from the CBS affiliate in Honolulu to the NBC affiliate in Green Bay). She has won numerous honors including an Emmy Award and multiple Edward R. Murrow awards honoring outstanding achievements in broadcast journalism. In addition, she has received awards from the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association for her reports on air travel and the Wisconsin Education Association Council for her stories on education. Michele has since left television to concentrate on being a mom and freelance writer.