When Privacy of One's Own Body Disappears During Pregnancy
Pregnancy is often depicted in popular culture as a miraculous and poetic stage of a woman's life – full of glowing skin, romantic moments, and touching anticipation. Social media is flooded with perfectly lit photographs of round bellies, featuring smiling expectant mothers. What remains hidden behind these images, however, is a far more complex and human story. One of the least discussed experiences of pregnancy is the loss of bodily privacy – a phenomenon that affects the vast majority of pregnant women, yet is almost never spoken about in everyday conversation.
It is an experience that begins subtly. First comes the initial ultrasound, where a doctor or midwife places a probe on the abdomen without much ceremony. Then come the regular check-ups, blood tests, measurements, and vaginal examinations. The body, which until now was the woman's own private domain, gradually becomes an object of medical interest, family commentary, and public evaluation. All of this happens under the guise of care and love – which makes the entire situation even more complicated.
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The Body as Public Property
There is a peculiar social phenomenon that manifests itself almost exclusively during pregnancy: people suddenly feel entitled to comment on, touch, and evaluate a woman's body in ways that would be entirely unacceptable under any other circumstances. Strangers in shops reach out to touch the belly without permission. Distant relatives ask about weight gain. Colleagues at work discuss the size of the bump – whether it is too big, too small, whether it "looks like a boy or a girl". A pregnant woman finds herself in a position where her body is no longer solely her own.
Psychologist and author of books on perinatal mental health Aurélie Athan from Columbia University described this phenomenon as "matrescence" – the transformation of a woman into a mother, which is comparable to adolescence and involves profound changes in identity, embodiment, and relationship with one's surroundings. Part of this transformation is precisely the confrontation with the fact that society perceives the pregnant body as a kind of shared space. As Athan herself noted: "Pregnancy is one of the few conditions where the public seems to feel a collective ownership over a woman's body."
This sense of losing control over one's own body is not merely a subjective impression. Research published in the academic journal Women & Birth has repeatedly shown that pregnant women experience a significant reduction in their sense of bodily autonomy, both in the context of medical care and in everyday social life. Yet it is precisely this sense of autonomy and control over one's own body that is crucial for mental wellbeing during pregnancy and for the course of childbirth itself.
Consider a specific example: Jana, a thirty-three-year-old teacher from Brno, describes her experience during the second trimester of her pregnancy as "being constantly on display". Every week, someone at work would place a hand on her belly without asking. At a family lunch, there were discussions about whether she was gaining weight "correctly". Her gynaecologist weighed her at every appointment and loudly commented on the numbers on the scale in front of the nurse and patients waiting behind the door. "I felt as though I had stopped being a person and had become merely a vessel for the child," Jana says. Her experience is not exceptional – on the contrary, it is surprisingly typical.
The Medical System and the Intimacy That Disappears
Healthcare during pregnancy is, of course, essential and life-saving. Modern prenatal medicine saves the lives of both mothers and children, and no reasonable person would question its fundamental role. At the same time, it is important to name what happens to a woman's bodily privacy within the framework of this care – and how the system, even with good intentions, can contribute to its erosion.
Vaginal examinations, blood draws, ultrasounds, cervical measurements, monitoring of foetal position – these are all legitimate medical procedures. The problem, however, lies not in their existence, but in the manner in which they are sometimes carried out. A study published in The Lancet in 2019, which mapped women's experiences of maternity care across 34 countries, found that a significant proportion of women had experienced procedures during childbirth or pregnancy without adequate explanation or explicit consent. The study's authors described this phenomenon as "disrespectful care" and emphasised that it has a demonstrably negative impact on women's mental health and their relationship with the healthcare system.
In the Czech context, the situation has its own specific character. Although obstetrics has improved significantly over the past twenty years and the number of maternity units working with the concept of respectful birth is growing, there are still facilities where a pregnant woman's body is approached more as a medical object than as a whole person with emotions, preferences, and a need for dignity. The organisation Hnutí za respektovaný porod has long been mapping these issues and providing women with information about their rights within maternity care.
The loss of privacy does not begin with childbirth. It begins much earlier – with the first vaginal ultrasound in early pregnancy, when a woman is still in shock from a positive test and has not yet had time to come to terms with her new reality. Or with the first examination, when a doctor speaks about her body in the third person, as though she herself were not present. These seemingly small moments accumulate and create an experience that can be profoundly disorienting for many women.
The question naturally arises: why is so little said about this? The answer is complex. Pregnancy is culturally associated with gratitude and joy – and a woman who complains about a loss of privacy or discomfort during medical examinations risks being labelled as ungrateful or overly sensitive. There is also an implicit pressure on pregnant women to "cooperate" – with doctors, with family, with those around them – and to suppress their own discomfort for the sake of the child. This pressure is itself a form of loss of autonomy, even when it is dressed in the garb of care.
What Can Be Done
Awareness of this issue is the first step. Many women only realise what they experienced retrospectively – after giving birth, when they begin to look back over the preceding months and put names to their feelings. The sooner a woman recognises that she has the right to privacy, to informed consent, and to dignified treatment, the better equipped she is to navigate the system and, where necessary, to speak up.
There are several concrete ways to preserve a greater degree of bodily autonomy during pregnancy:
- Informed consent is the right of every patient – a woman can ask for an explanation of every procedure before it takes place, and has the right to refuse or postpone it.
- Communication with a midwife or doula can be enormously helpful – these professionals are trained in respecting boundaries and can act as advocates for the woman within the medical system.
- Setting boundaries with family and those around you is legitimate and healthy – a woman can clearly state that she does not wish people to touch her without permission, or that she does not want comments about her weight or the size of her bump.
- Therapeutic support – talking with a psychologist or therapist specialising in the perinatal period can help process feelings of loss of control and build resilience.
A pregnant woman's body is still her body. This sentence may sound self-evident, but in practice many women need to hear it again and again – from doctors, from partners, from friends, and from themselves. Pregnancy changes the body physically and psychologically, but it does not change a woman's fundamental right to autonomy, dignity, and privacy.
It also matters how we speak about these issues in society. The more women share their experiences – whether in private conversations, in online communities, or publicly – the more the very reality that pregnancy is not simply an idyllic phase, but also a demanding test of boundaries, identity, and self-confidence, becomes normalised. A platform such as Ferwer, which focuses on a holistic view of women's health and wellbeing, can be a place where such conversations take place without judgement and with respect.
Every pregnancy is different, and every woman experiences this stage differently. Some women feel at the centre of loving attention and receive it with gratitude. Others feel overwhelmed, watched, and stripped of their privacy. Both experiences are valid and both deserve space. It is precisely by beginning to speak about the more complex aspects of pregnancy – including the loss of bodily privacy – that we can help women feel less alone and better prepared for one of the most intense experiences of human life.
