Pregnancy announcements have been a fun tradition many expecting parents have participated in to share their joyful news with family and friends. From heartfelt social media posts to creative photo shoots, announcing a pregnancy has been a milestone many expecting parents look forward to, and with social media, even strangers can join in on the excitement.
However, recently, it feels like there has been a noticeable shift online regarding pregnancy announcement posts. A growing number of people are choosing to not announce their pregnancy online at all. Instead, those parents are deciding to share the news on social media only after their baby is born – a baby announcement instead of a pregnancy one.
Probably the most famous recent example of not announcing pregnancy until birth is when Kylie Jenner was expecting her first baby, Stormi. She laid low for her entire pregnancy, only sharing the news with the world that she’d had a baby sometime after her daughter was born. Her reason was that she wanted to ensure she was taking care of herself and keeping her stress levels lower during her pregnancy.
While Jenner’s decision felt like a unique choice at the time, since then, we’ve had more celebrities follow suit: Scarlett Johansson and Colin Jost, Emmy Rossum and Sam Esmail, and Nessa Diab and Colin Kaepernick have all “hard-launched” their babies after hiding their pregnancies online, to name a few.
Announcing or not announcing a pregnancy is a very personal choice. But we were curious to learn why someone may choose to wait until their baby is born to announce or share the news online instead of sharing it during pregnancy.
Why Do Some People Avoid the Pregnancy Announcement Post?
Linda Kondilis, PhD, a reproductive-health psychologist and founder of Orama Wellness, tells POPSUGAR one reason people may choose to keep their pregnancy news off social media is because there is more awareness of how that news could come across – or who the news could unintentionally hurt.
“Many of my patients who have struggled with getting pregnant hesitate or refuse to post their pregnancy announcement online because they know how emotionally triggering it can be to their community who is still trying to conceive,” she says.
“Many people who have not had any challenges trying to conceive know someone who has,” Dr. Kondilis adds. “Whether there is a medical challenge or not, people are more aware that their community is going through financial, emotional, and physical stressors to have children.”
Dr. Kondilis explains that whether someone is aware of the potential emotions of someone around them or they’re protecting their own emotions, “so many people feel more comfortable sharing [their baby news] once they’ve given birth.”
We wanted to find out more about how people decided how much of their pregnancy journeys to share online. So we asked some parents whether they decided to post pregnancy announcements online and why they went that route. Here’s what we found out.
Pro Pregnancy Announcement Post
“I posted, but I also wanted to savor telling people in person.”
“I did share my pregnancy news online for all three of my pregnancies. [But] with each one, I waited later and later to share the news on social media because I wanted to savor telling more people through other ways, like in person or via a holiday card,” Olivia DeLong, senior health editor at BabyCenter, tells POPSUGAR.
“I wanted to share, but the pressure is off to do something elaborate.”
“I think that pregnancy announcements aren’t necessarily out of style, and many people are getting creative and doing them. I do think there’s a mindset now that it doesn’t have to be as elaborate as Pinterest perfect or even occur at all,” Kim Perry, a certified personal trainer in Florida, tells POPSUGAR. “Instead, people are waiting [until] later in their pregnancy or not doing it at all! I love that people no longer feel pressured. I shared because I did have a large audience that was my community. I really wanted to share and did so when I was ready.”
“I waited until the second trimester, but I liked being able to give the news in one go.”
“Yes, but only after I was in the second trimester. My first pregnancy ended up being ectopic. I hadn’t shared that one, but I wanted to be sure future pregnancies were more viable before I announced them,” Faye W. tells POPSUGAR. “I shared them to give the news in one go to my friends and extended family.”
Anti Pregnancy Announcement Post
“I held off because I was superstitious.”
“I do wish I could have announced it; however, when I was pregnant with my first child at age 33, I had gone through almost two years of fertility treatment, so I didn’t feel comfortable making an announcement at that time in case something went wrong,” Lisa McCarty, PR, strategy and brand partnerships at Lisa McCarty, tells POPSUGAR. “I saw many of my friends posting pregnancy announcements. However, I was apprehensive about sharing because I was superstitious that something would go wrong. I did receive some surprised comments on my post stating that people had no idea I was even pregnant.”
“I waited until my baby was born because I’d experienced loss.”
“Instead of waiting 12 weeks, I waited 16 weeks to announce the pregnancy via social media. Less than two weeks later, I experienced a second-trimester loss,” Teia Wallington, a publicist from Love Publicity in Detroit, tells POPSUGAR.
“In 2021, we conceived again, and I did not announce it. I just lived life, and the day after my rainbow baby was born, I posted a maternity pic of my husband and I,” she adds. She shared the news on social media the day after her baby was born, writing, “After the storm, there really is a rainbow . . . and I’m so excited y’all!”
“It’s too much information to share.”
“No, I didn’t share. I gave up social media the same month I got pregnant. My daughter is 2 and a half now, and she has no presence online,” Megan W. tells POPSUGAR. “I think it is so unethical to use human beings as a tool for attention. Pregnancy announcements are fine in person, but online, they’re dangerous and not done with the intention of informing friends and family but currying attention and clout from those who you don’t talk to frequently.”
Ultimately, the question of whether pregnancy announcements are becoming less popular is subjective. What’s clear, though, is that each pregnant person can decide for themself when and how they want to share their pregnancy news on social media, or if they want to share it at all. It’s all about respecting their autonomy and freedom to make a personal choice that feels right to them.
