As I watched the recently released Netflix docuseries ‘Beckham’, I was reminded of the ‘Too Posh to Push’ headline about Victoria Beckham and the birth of her son, Brooklyn, who was delivered by Caesarean Section (C-section) . In the documentary, Victoria Beckham sets the record straight, saying ‘’I wasn’t too posh to push, I was told it would not be safe for me to be put into labour’’.
The publishing of this headline highlights the cultural and societal pressures women feel around childbirth and motherhood. Although this headline dates back to 1999, many women still feel this pressure today.
In my work as a counsellor and psychotherapist, I am privileged to spend time with women during the perinatal period. Whilst exploring feelings around birth, it is not unusual for mothers who have had a C-section to feel like a ‘failure’ because they did not have a vaginal birth.
Perhaps it is useful for us to think more deeply about the cultural and societal pressures around childbirth.
From a developmental perspective, as girls grow up in the world, they take in images and information about the women around them in order to consciously and unconsciously create an identity for themselves as a woman. Transmitted through generations, and still entrenched in our society today, girls grow up with the idea that primary roles for them are those of a wife and mother. They also develop a construct about the psychological and societal requirements that these roles involve (Eichenbaum & Orbach, 1982, 2012).
In today’s society, we can see this is starting to shift as women choose not to take on these roles or consciously reshape what they look like. However, societal attitudes and behaviours still reinforce expectations of women in these roles.
Within this societal structure, women internalise a sense that they are ‘designed’ for childbirth. It is thought of as a ‘natural process’ that all women are made for. However, this denies the reality of the complications that can arise with pregnancy and childbirth. Women often undergo a C-section because it is advised by health professionals as the safest option for mother and/or baby. It can also be the preferred option when the mother’s past trauma may make it too traumatic for her to undergo a vaginal birth.
It is problematic to engage in the glamorisation of a C-section as the ‘comfortable’ and ‘easy’ option. The ‘Too Posh to Push’ headline is even suggestive of it being an option for women of a certain societal status. However, the reality is that a C-section is a major operation which requires many weeks of recovery and can lead to complications further down the line. It often requires the mother to be separated from her baby straight after birth as she enters the recovery unit within the hospital. Following this, there is a significant period of physical recovery that can be painful and extremely limiting to the mother’s movement. During this time, she is advised not to drive or engage in any lifting. Mothers often deny themselves this recovery as they put their own needs aside to care for the needs of their baby. Indeed, I am often told ‘how can I not lift when I have a new born baby to look after’.
Aside from the physical effects, there are also numerous psychological impacts of a birth by C-section, and it can be particularly traumatic for the mother when the operation takes place in an emergency situation. Mothers can also experience a psychological grief and mourning of the much wished for vaginal birth.
More widely than this, pregnancy and childbirth, and the early months of motherhood that follow, can be an extremely vulnerable time. Women go through significant changes to their body and identity during this period. This is apparent no matter how a woman ends up giving birth, and is a reality for which the ‘Too Posh to Push’ headline appears to lack any empathy.
At the time of the mentioned headline, perhaps Victoria Beckham was seen as a woman who had it all. She had a successful career, was married to a man who was admired and desired around the world and was a new mother. Perhaps ‘envy’ was a contributor to such a denigrating headline that was not reflective of Victoria’s truth and of the way in which women experience pregnancy and birth. It does, however, bring to light the psychological pressure that women can feel today in both motherhood and their careers.
References
Beckham, Netflix Documentary Series, October 2023.
Eichenbaum, L., & Orbach, S. 1982, 2012. Understanding Women. New York: Basic Books, pp.1-25.
Further Resources if you have experienced a traumatic birth