Dean
These days, it’s not uncommon for a woman to make sure she is fully made up and picture-perfect before giving birth.
It might seem weird for a woman to want to put on makeup while she’s in labor, but hey, she just wants to look her best.
And applying makeup can also provide a bit of a distraction from the pain of contractions for some women.
And it’s not just makeup—a study from Cosmetify showed that up to 64 percent of women between the ages of 18 and 31 get beauty treatments before going into labor—things like mani/pedis, hair removal treatments, and even spray tans.
Each woman has her own reasons for doing this, of course. The same study revealed that 31 percent said they got glammed up to look good in photos. Twenty-six percent said they wanted to look for visitors and 22 percent said they just didn’t want to look drained.
A beauty blogger named Alexis Jayda even made a makeup tutorial while waiting to have her baby. Hey, it passes the time.
In the picture above, another beauty blogger, Diana Chavez, touches up her eyes while laying in her hospital bed.
And Lee Ann Jarrell said that she “refused” to give birth until her makeup was done, according to Bored Panda.
Alaha Karimi, a makeup artist located in New York, went viral in 2016 after sharing some pictures of herself doing her makeup, including one where she had a contraction during the application. She told ABC News, “I went to the hospital at 7:30 a.m., and I was in labor for a total of 10 hours that day. I had an epidural around 8:30 or 9:00 a.m., so when it started to wear off, I needed something to distract myself from the pain.”
Not all women are doing their own makeup—some call in the professionals. Above, makeup artist Tegan Woodford does up her sister-in-law, who was in labor at the time.
Arizona OBGYN Affiliates told Bored Panda that most makeups are completely safe to use during pregnancy—women just have to be careful to avoid products containing retinoids or salicylic acid.
So clearly, there’s no medical problem with applying makeup.
It’s not like it’s hurting anyone, or making anything unsafe.
But that doesn’t stop people from complaining that what these moms are doing is somehow wrong or bad. Like, for example, this woman who commented: “Get a f**king life” on a bunch of these makeup pics on Instagram.
She seems cool.
Other people classified it as “sad.” Oh, the condescension!
Their complaints don’t make a lot of sense, though.
Wearing makeup, or applying makeup during labor, is not in any way detracting from the specialness of the moment the baby is born.
It seems that a lot of people just think it’s superficial.
But one person pointed out how many of her friends who’d had babies said, “I looked horrible and [pictures] will never see the light of day.”
So why not just let women about to give birth do what they want to do?
h/t: BoredPanda
