Content advice: This post features images of babies being born
Some brilliant news, with social media platforms making changes to their clumsy censorship policies, now allowing images of childbirth to be shared without fear of deletion or other punitive measures.
Passionate campaign
Previously, the social media outlets seemed to categorise birth and breastfeeding images as inappropriate and offensive imagery. A passionate campaign led by Los Angeles-based nurse and doula, Katie Vigos sought to change this. Katie’s initiative resulted in over 23 000 signatures on a petition aiming to budge the ban on birth photos.
Amongst the petition’s recommendations were calls to: recategorise all birth-related content as educational material, in its own unique category if necessary; and allow our community to post graphic images of physiological birth with the images blurred or greyed out, so users can tap to see the images and choose whether to view them.
And – amazingly – Instagram listened! The platform says it’s now aiming to make a distinction between photos showing motherhood in all its glory and images of sexualised nudity – and sister company Facebook have followed suit.
Instagram spoke to parenting site Motherly about the changes that are afoot, explaining their “nudity policy is evolving to allow for photos and videos of childbirth.”
“Over the past several months we have worked with birthing advocates and women’s health experts to help craft this policy update that we believe better categorizes birthing imagery as educational and celebratory,” an Instagram rep said.
It’s unclear exactly how these platforms are actually going to distinguish between birth imagery and other inappropriate nudity, but it’s a huge step in the right direction and a fantastic result. We’ll be watching on enthusiastically.
Change-maker Katie expressed her delight, updating her fellow campaigners and petition-signers with the big news that promises to revolutionise the way society views childbirth.
“Thanks to our collective efforts, Instagram AND Facebook have changed their policies to allow uncensored childbirth,” Katie wrote on Change.org.
It’s been a long road for Katie, with a brilliant, hard-won result. Her Instagram account – Empowered Birth Project – has been sharing birth images (with mothers’ permission) since 2013, in a quest to educate, normalise and celebrate childbirth and women. She’d been battling the platform ever since, as they removed images they said violated the company’s community guidelines, almost as quickly as she could post them.
It’s a pattern that will be familiar to many other birth photographers and women who sought to celebrate these transformative – and completely normal – moments in a woman’s life.
“Birth is a moment of ultimate power and surrender for women,” Katie told Harper’s Bazaar.“Telling women that that power is offensive and needs to be hidden is sending a really damaging message.”
Here’s hoping that the process that ensures these images are allowed on Facebook and Instagram is refined quickly and effectively.
“We have literally changed the world,” a jubilant Katie said. “There is strength in numbers; we did it!”