Mila Kunis is excited about her pregnancy as any mom would be. It’s a bit uncertain as to when she and Ashton Kutcher will become parents because she’s staying mum on that tidbit of information, but the mom-to-be is talking about her birthing plans. She spoke to Ellen DeGeneres about those plans earlier this week while she was a guest on her show, and the comments she made have drawn quite the backlash.
Kunis told Ellen that she plans to forgo an epidural when laboring and giving birth.
“The hospital that I’m going to be laboring in does a midwife, you know, doula type of thing. I’m going to do it as all natural as I possibly can unless that there’s an emergency or something that should go wrong,” she explained.
“I did this to myself,” she added. “I might as well just do it right. I wanted this!”
It’s the “do it right” part that has many women up in arms.
“Like Mila but just because you use an epidural during child birth doesn’t mean you are not ‘doing it right,'” one commenter remarked.
“What’s ‘right’ is doing whatever is safest for baby and mom, which depends on the labor situation. There’s no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to give birth. Hopefully she gets a tad less judgmental after she has kids and realizes that it’s not a competition,” another commenter wrote.
Author Kelly Oxford tweeted her feelings about Mila Kunis’s comment.
"I'm going to do it as natural as I can… I might as well do it right." Mila Kunis. SAD NEWS: Looks like some women have a baby wrong. 🙁
— kelly oxford (@kellyoxford) May 9, 2014
Oxford’s tweet was almost immediately retweeted by actress Lena Dunham.
Mila Kunis certainly didn’t mean to start a war between moms who “do it right” and those who don’t with regard to childbirth. The war typically includes those who breastfeed their babies and those who do not, with the latter clearly “doing it wrong.” The actress simply engaged in a conversation with Ellen DeGeneres and spoke what was on her heart and in her mind, with little thought to insulting those who give birth to their babies with the assistance of pain relief like epidurals.
Do you expect this backlash will continue or will Mila forevermore be known as the actress who plans to “do it right” when she gives birth to her and Ashton Kutcher’s baby? Do you think maybe the media should give Mila Kunis a break?
Image via Wikimedia Commons
