Tag: childbirth education

It’s a term I have heard over and over. In fact, I have used the term in the past but now, I can no longer use the term. It’s offensive! It makes my stomach turn each time I hear it and it’s now considered a trigger. Earthside…or as most often used: “Bringing Baby Earthside.”

A trite term used to describe birthing a baby, the term earthside is offensive to many mothers. There are birthing coloring books called Bringing Baby Earthside, a fantastic tool for pregnant women to help relieve stress and focus on the positive aspects of birth but needs a new name; blogs written about the “earthside” baby such as this one from Birth Without Fear; Pinterest pages dedicated to bringing babies earthside and even Etsy shops with onesies stating “Finally Earthside”. Babies are being welcomed “Earthside” in birth story after birth story.

No definition exists yet on what bringing a baby earthside means. Thank God and I sincerely hope this never becomes a definable term. This phrase needs to disappear as quickly as it came in the typical fad fashion. From Oxford Dictionary, earthside is defined as “on or from the planet earth.”

Unless a religion or belief states otherwise, while a woman is pregnant, her baby is actually on earth. I suppose if the pregnant woman is in space, the baby wouldn’t be on planet earth but where the baby is, so is the mother. The womb is not some intergalactic, off-the-planet place where babies form through stars into human beings and use hyperdrive to perfectly time their birth on this earth [insert sarcasm].

While human creation is a miracle and some might consider it supernatural, it’s not intergalactic. There is plenty of science that supports perfect timing for sperm meeting the egg, creating a pregnancy and forming life, which develops into a human being, and is born via a human being; all of which allegedly takes place on planet Earth. So if we are welcoming baby earthside, where has this baby been the last nine months or so?

Welcoming a baby earthside discounts the pregnancy experience as something it’s not. If the baby is not on this earth, as bringing baby earthside suggests, then how does the mother bond with her baby? If the baby in her womb is not earthside, does she have to help the baby in any way? What obligation does the mother have to the baby who is not earthside? Does the baby even exist? Is there a ball of stars within the mothers womb, bouncing around in there?

In my childbirth education classes, my students are told they are parents from the moment they became pregnant. One could possibly state that they became parents even before pregnancy because they have made decisions for the baby before that baby was even conceived. Oftentimes, my students are a bit confused to be called parents so early in their pregnancy.

But what are they if they are not parents? We call them mother and father in classes and that’s the definition of a parent. So as a mother and father of an unborn child they are responsible for caring for that child. If that child dies, they are still a mother and father.

So they are parents, of little humans, on earth, who have not yet been born. On earth is a key phrase here. They are already earthside. Let’s side-step for a moment.

For mothers enduring pregnancy loss, the term earthside takes on a different meaning. This pregnancy loss blog shares a story where the mother writes to the baby she will never meet earthside. While her baby was already “earthside” within her womb, she is using the term earthside to describe the physical form she will never hold on earth. I feel the same way. I will never hold Gus or Ruby “earthside.”

Her pregnancy loss happened very early and she describes how her loss “flowed from her.” No baby to hold, touch, or see, just blood washing her tiny baby out of her. She is a Christian and will not meet her baby on this earth. But in her blog, she shares her ambivalence with her grief and her struggles with the right to grieve. She has every right to grieve her loss. She loved this baby from the moment she suspected she was pregnant. She dreamed of this baby and imagined a new life with this baby in it. She is worthy of her grief but society doesn’t think so and she mentions this as one reason she did not share her loss with others.

Isn’t it enough for loss parents to have to prove to society the legitimacy of their loss without now having to prove their baby/child was “earthside?” If the baby isn’t really here on earth during the pregnancy, then why would a woman have the right to grieve if the baby didn’t really “exist?” Could using the term earthside damage a woman’s right to grieve? A baby’s whole existence is defined through birthing them alive. If a baby is not birthed alive, society questions their existence and mothers are confused and shameful in their grief.

Why must we define birth as coming earthside?

If a mother on earth is pregnant, the baby within her womb is on earth. The baby is already earthside. The baby doesn’t magically become earthside at birth; to say otherwise discounts the miraculous and earthly experience of conception, development, and birth. To say otherwise, minimizes the experiences of pregnancy loss because the baby never took a breath “earthside.” To say earthside at birth, turns the pregnancy experience into something galactic or alien.

Women should feel connected to their unborn, they should revel in the divine or mystical creation of new life and birth. When a woman discovers she is pregnant, she should shout from the rooftops: WELCOME EARTHSIDE! And when the baby is born she should rejoice, welcome her baby into her loving arms and into the tenderness of her nourishing bosom.

There is no need to define birthing a baby as bringing a baby earthside because the baby already was earthside. A simple “Welcome Baby” is sufficient.

But maybe, just maybe we are also using earthside as a euphemism. A way to describe birth without saying the word birth because to do so, would present the experience of birth as it is currently represented: fear-based, messy, and exhausting. Bringing a baby earthside certainly sounds more pleasant. Sign me up for bringing a baby earthside but “birthing a baby?” Eeewww.

Bringing a baby earthside is just a substitute for the unpleasant thoughts of “birth.” Instead of empowering women to birth, maybe if we just change the word “birth” to the word “earthside,” women will all of a sudden feel confident and comfortable with the experience and their fear will magically disappear?! [sarcasm] As an educator, I suppose I no longer need to teach about the experience of birth but about how to bring a baby “earthside” where there is no pain and your baby is transformed out of your womb, down a rainbow and onto your chest [more sarcasm].

This is no different than storks bringing babies to hopeful mothers. It’s a myth that is perpetuated as a distraction from what birth really is: a transformation which might be uncomfortable and/or painful but it is a transformation nonetheless.

Let’s stop using the term earthside. It’s distracting, it’s offensive, it’s a myth. Women birth babies. We have since time began. Babies aren’t dropped off by storks, they don’t come earthside (they were already on Earth); babies emerge from our wombs, through our vagina or in some cases, via surgical birth. We can’t change that no matter what term we use.