war stories

Hold on to your seats, ladies and gentlemen. I'm blogging about childbirth.

Not from personal experience.

The subject at hand is this article, which describes how going into labor has become sort of a survival of the fittest scenario, with women trying to outdo each other in the level of pain they're able to tolerate.

An excerpt:

Women must make it a contest. Deep in the Nappy Valleys of our cities - while those "too posh to push" keep sheepishly schtum - there are mothers who brag not just about their home births but about what they do with the placenta afterwards, from serving it up with fava beans and a nice chianti (cooked placenta is very good for post-natal depression, I am told) or burying it ceremonially in the garden, ideally beneath a huggable tree.

I've never actually given birth, but I have been a part of many uncomfortable situations with women who almost like to brag about all the horror they went through while having a kid.

Awkward.

Readers with children: While pregnant, did you ever feel social pressure to make your extreme battle wounds publicly known?

OK, I promise I won't write another post involving the word "placenta" for a very, very long time. But for more info on motherhood, check out the Ledger's Mom2Mom site here.