When a beautiful birth is just that

Bursting the bubble of “Positive Birth = Positive Postpartum”

There’s a beautiful awakening happening around birth right now.

More and more women are waking up to the sacredness of birth—the way it can be powerful, instinctual, undisturbed, and wildly transformative.

Even a rebirth of the mother, if you will.

And honestly? I am so here for it. Obvi…I’ve been a birth worker for the past 5 years.

I know birth matters. It imprints us on levels we’re only beginning to understand.

But today, I want to speak to a growing ideology that, while often well-meaning, is hurting & disregarding a lot of women in subtle ways.

It’s the belief that a positive birth guarantees a positive postpartum, breastfeeding, and motherhood journey.

It’s the idea that if you “get birth right,” everything else will fall magically into place.

I get why we want to believe that.

We’re desperate for some sense of control in a world that feels chaotic…especially during this season.

We want to believe that if we just prepare enough, surrender enough, trust enough—then we’ll be spared the harder parts.

But it’s simply not the whole truth.

Birth is foundational, yes.

It sets a tone. It matters deeply.

But motherhood is vast.

Postpartum is vast.

And sometimes—despite having the most empowered and undisturbed birth—the days and weeks and months after are still messy, overwhelming, confusing, and hard at time, and that’s okay.

Birth can absolutely influence postpartum —both positively and negatively.

If your birth was traumatic, disturbed, or violent, it can create real ripples into your breastfeeding journey, your bond with your baby, your mental health, ect.

That connection is real and needs to be honored.

But the inverse is not always true.

A beautiful, undisturbed, physiological birth does not guarantee a smooth postpartum.

It doesn’t guarantee an easy breastfeeding journey.

It doesn’t promise you immunity from postpartum depression, anxiety, grief, rage, or identity crisis.

It doesn’t secure a healthy, complication-free baby.

Sometimes, despite having a dream birth, postpartum still brings you to your knees.

Because postpartum isn’t a reward for how ‘well’ you birthed—it’s an initiation all on its own.

The idea that “positive birth = positive everything else” sets women up for deep, unnecessary shame.

When postpartum feels heavy—when breastfeeding feels impossible—when motherhood feels lonelier than you imagined—you start questioning yourself:

“Was there something wrong with my birth?”

“What did I do wrong?”

“Am I not aligned enough?”

And I just want to say to every woman who’s asked herself these questions:

Stop. Breathe. Come home to yourself.

You didn’t do anything wrong.

You’re walking the exact path your soul was meant to walk.

Not because you failed.

But because there is wisdom, expansion, and resilience waiting for you here too.

Other realities that can shape postpartum (not limited to):

🌿 Hormonal shifts/imbalances

🌿 Sleep deprivation

🌿 Lack of community and support

🌿 Physical recovery

🌿 New identity shifts and relational changes

🌿 Cultural expectations that devalue mothers

These forces are massive. And even the most empowering birth in the world can’t shield you from the deeply human, messy experience of integrating a whole new life—both outside of you and inside of you.

The same goes for breastfeeding.

Yes, the birth can impact it (for example, birth trauma, interventions, and separation can make breastfeeding harder.)

But even after the smoothest birth, breastfeeding can still be hard.

Learning to feed your baby is a skill. It’s instinctual and learned. In a society that doesn’t actually support women in feeding babies with their bodies.

In my five years of being in the birth space as a childbirth educator, doula, and mother I have heard this repeated to women over and over again…that if they *just had an undisturbed birth* then they wouldn’t be dealing with [insert postpartum challenge].

And I won’t name drop, but there’s a particularly extreme group of freebirthers who spew this rhetoric all the time…

That if you simply freebirth, your birth will be ‘intact’ which in result means that everything else will come with ease.

That is simply not true.

It’s idealistic.

It’s guarantees disappointment because there are so many other elements to motherhood, to breastfeeding, to postpartum healing that gets disregarded with this mindset.

And quite frankly anyone who claims to support women and throws this idea around is really doing women a disservice. It’s setting them up for grief & self judgement.

For the woman who did not get their dream birth…you can still have a beautiful breastfeeding journey. You can also have a nourishing & well-supported postpartum. Your healing journey starts here.

And for the woman who had her undisturbed, ‘intact’ birth: I’m so happy for you. I would also say, lean into postpartum prepared for whatever God reveals to you in this season. This is a rebirth, for you. There will be oxytocin puddles and maybe some tears from overwhelm. All of it is okay.

One of the hardest and holiest lessons of motherhood is surrender.

Not the passive kind—the intentional kind.

Surrender to the unraveling. Surrender to the being cracked the F open.

Surrender to the messy, unexplainable parts that don’t make sense yet.

Motherhood was never meant to be measured by how smooth it feels.

It was meant to grow you. Stretch you. Crack you open and rebuild you.

When we cling to the narrative that everything must go perfectly if we do things “right,” we rob ourselves of the beautiful mystery.

We make ourselves wrong for having a deeply human experience.

The truth?

Sometimes we aren’t meant to know why certain challenges arise.

Sometimes the medicine is in the surviving, in the surrendering, in the slow rebuilding of trust in ourselves.

You are mothering.

You are healing.

You are growing.

And that is more than enough.

(A sweet reminder to myself. I hope it helps you, too, mama)

With Love,

Tiffany