Let me say something that might ruffle some feathers.

A healthy baby is not all that matters.

Before anyone comes for me: YES, a healthy baby matters. Enormously. It is the thing every single parent I've ever met wants most. It's the thing I want most for them and for anyone who has experience loss, I am so so incredibly sorry. 

But "all"? No. That word is doing some sneaky work, and I want to talk about it.

Where this phrase shows up

You know exactly when this sentence gets said. It's never during a beautiful, supported, empowering birth. Shit, it's never even after something goes medically wrong. 

It shows up after. After someone says "I felt rushed." After someone says "I didn't understand what was happening." After someone says "nobody asked me or why did you do that to me." 

And then, like clockwork: "Well... at least the baby is healthy!"

Um thanks? No.

You can't use that phrase as a band-aid for birth trauma and doing something hurtful. It's a dismissive phrase used for providers and support systems to not have to take accountability of their actions. 

What it actually communicates

When someone says "a healthy baby is all that matters," here's what the person who just gave birth hears:

Your experience doesn't matter. Your body doesn't matter. The fact that you felt scared, steamrolled, or invisible in one of the biggest moments of your life? Doesn't matter. Be grateful and be quiet.

Oof. Right? (I can feel the feminine rage firing up in me already. Can you?!)

Here's the thing, you are not a factory farm animal (who also deserve respect). You are a whole human being who went through something massive, and you are allowed to hold two truths at the same time:

I am deeply grateful my baby is healthy.

AND

I deserved to be treated with respect while bringing them here.

Those two sentences are not in a fight with each other. They never were.

Why this matters beyond your feelings

(And to be clear, your feelings alone ARE reason enough.)

How you experience your birth follows you into postpartum and honestly, the rest of your life. Parents who felt informed and respected during birth tend to step into those early weeks feeling more confident. Parents who felt dismissed often carry that into recovery, into feeding, into how safe they feel asking for help.

Your birth experience isn't a footnote. It's the opening chapter of your postpartum story. YOUR MOTHERHOOD STORY. 

I mean, how many strangers have walked up to you in a grocery store, trauma dumped their birth story, AND then said "but baby was healthy so I guess it's okay." IS IT OKAY?!? ARE YOU, STRANGER WHO OVERSHARED WITH ME, OKAY?!  I don't think so. 

When we treat the birthing person's experience as optional — as long as the baby's APGAR scores look good — we're not just being rude. We're minimizing their entire experience and setting families up to start parenthood from a harder place. Even when babies aren't healthy, you still deserve to be treated with love and compassion. 

You're allowed to want more (it's not selfish)

You're allowed to want a healthy baby AND informed consent.

A healthy baby AND a provider who talks to you, not at you.

A healthy baby AND a partner who knew how to support you instead of standing in the corner doing their best impression of a coat rack.

Wanting more than survival is not selfish. It's not "precious." It's not asking too much.

It's the bare minimum, honestly. We've just been conditioned that being told "at least baby is healthy" is enough of an explanation for your experience to "not matter."

So where do you go from here?

Prepare. Not out of fear, but out of self-respect.

Learn your options before you're in the room. Practice asking questions before you're eight centimeters and not exactly in a Q&A mood. Get your partner ready to be an actual teammate, because "healthy baby is all that matters" gets a lot harder to say to TWO people who know exactly what they want and why.

That's the entire heartbeat behind my Virtual Birth Partnership program  because you and your baby both deserve to come out of that room healthy AND happy. One of you just also deserves to come out of it feeling like the powerful person that you are. 

You matter too. So let's give you the tools to support yourself. 

Happy You're Here,

Kyndrick