The practice of writing and sharing personal birth stories is a growing phenomenon in the U.S. These stories are shared across social media, podcasts, and blogs to inspire, comfort, empower, and entertain birthing people and families who have gone through, or are about to go through, the birth process. If you or a partner recently gave birth, you may have read a few in preparation for “what to expect.” You may have written and shared your own.

Women and (non-female identified) birthing people may share birth stories in birth classes and through personal emails and blogs. Popular pregnancy and parenting websites have started to post select stories for a wider public readership. A few websites have sprung up dedicated to collecting and archiving individually submitted stories (see the Birth Stories in Media page for examples).

We applaud this grassroots movement but have noted that most stories are shared by U.S. women and birthing people, many giving birth at home or in birthing centers, and many are of relatively privileged economic and educational status.

Obviously, there is a much larger population of women giving birth who are not participating in this movement. The mediums through which to read and share birth stories are still limited. Women giving birth under different circumstances may not connect with stories from a fairly circumspect group of U.S. women; most importantly, their stories are not being told.