A leading support organisation for pregnant women has launched a campaign to promote more positive reactions around pregnancy after clients reported experiencing negative reactions.
Crisis pregnancy organisation Gianna Care decided to launch the initiative following reports from client of off-putting and derogatory comments from family members, friends and work colleagues.
Gianna Care Director Carolyn O’Meara told The Irish Catholic that the campaign “is something that’s come to my mind a lot” in recent years, inspired by her interactions with clients, as well as her own experiences.
The clients “often say to us that they dread telling certain people or they dread the reactions and the negative comments from certain people,” Ms O’Meara said, explaining that this can lead women to question the pregnancy itself rather than enjoying the experience.
She described “women being so distressed at the thoughts of the negative reactions they say they’ll receive that they contemplate abortion and some have even aborted because of that reason.”
Sharing some of the reactions they’ve received to the campaign, one woman said she “worries” about telling people about her pregnancies, “what people will say, what the neighbours will think, what reaction I will have this time from family members”.
Another woman said that during her most recent and seventh pregnancy, the doctor, instead of offering “congratulations, I was asked if it was what I wanted and was then told there are ways out if I wasn’t sure”.
Ms O’Meara said that while Ireland has come a long way in terms of mental health awareness, “there is not an awful lot done to protect mothers who are in a very unique and vulnerable position”.
“We’re just asking for people to be aware of their reactions here and now to pregnancy – to welcome pregnancy,” Ms O’Meara said.
“Mothers are a group of people that should just be totally supported. Even if the circumstances are bad, let’s try and change the circumstances and not view the new life as something negative,” she said.