{"id":170428,"date":"2025-06-09T14:15:14","date_gmt":"2025-06-09T14:15:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/170428\/"},"modified":"2025-06-09T14:15:14","modified_gmt":"2025-06-09T14:15:14","slug":"meghan-markles-haters-dont-understand-childbirth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/170428\/","title":{"rendered":"Meghan Markle\u2019s haters don\u2019t understand childbirth"},"content":{"rendered":"

Meghan Markle<\/a> is one of the most puzzling public figures of our time. She\u2019s an American who married into the British<\/a> royal family, convinced her literal prince to leave the monarchy, and relocated to Hollywood<\/a> with him and their two children. And yet, despite that tabloid-worthy backstory, she somehow remains one of the dullest people in public life.<\/p>\n

None of her projects have made much of an impression. Her podcast fizzled. Her Netflix show on cooking and entertaining was among the most excruciatingly bland\u00a0productions<\/a>\u00a0ever green-lit by a major streaming platform. She radiates earnestness, but little else.<\/p>\n

Still, she manages to be the center of a vast and obsessive online ecosystem, a whole swath of the internet devoted to criticizing, doubting, and dissecting her every move. Much of the criticism is warranted. Markle often seems to struggle with consistency, lapses into self-mythologizing, and is caught telling stories that strain credulity. In one particularly baffling moment, she told<\/a> actress Mindy Kaling on her Netflix show that her last name was \u201cSussex.\u201d<\/p>\n

For anyone understandably confused by that: Sussex is a royal title, not a surname. When Markle married Prince Harry, the late Queen Elizabeth II granted them the titles Duke and Duchess of Sussex. That doesn\u2019t make \u201cSussex\u201d her legal last name. Technically, her name remains Meghan Markle. The couple could also use the surname Mountbatten-Windsor, which is the official family name for descendants of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip.<\/p>\n

To my surprise, though, Markle did something last week that was, dare I say, charming. She posted<\/a> a video to mark her daughter Lilibet\u2019s fourth birthday, showing her and Prince Harry dancing in a hospital room while waiting for labor to begin. She was nine months pregnant, a week overdue, and, based on the caption, being induced. Set to the track \u201cBaby Momma,\u201d the video showed Markle dancing with confidence and, yes, rhythm. While I could\u2019ve done without the dress hike and twerk at the end, it was playful and unexpectedly relatable.<\/p>\n

Naturally, the haters lost their minds.<\/p>\n

Because my social media algorithms have caught wind of my own Markle skepticism, my feeds are filled with content from accounts dedicated to \u201cexposing\u201d her. These accounts often fixate on the conspiracy theory that Markle is not the biological mother of her children, a claim too ridiculous to entertain for long, but one I\u2019ve occasionally fallen down the rabbit hole exploring, just for curiosity\u2019s sake. Yes, there are some odd videos and photos out there, but the idea that a global figure could fake not one but two pregnancies without a single leak from medical professionals is, frankly, absurd.<\/p>\n

Still, the conspiracy theorists pounced on the hospital dance video as supposed \u201cevidence.\u201d Their complaints were revealing \u2014 not of Markle\u2019s duplicity, but of widespread ignorance about pregnancy and childbirth.<\/p>\n

Some argued that no one could possibly move like that at nine months pregnant. In reality, dancing through early labor or before induction is not only possible, but common: There\u2019s an entire TikTok trend devoted to it. Others claimed Markle was lying because her husband wasn\u2019t in scrubs and she wasn\u2019t in a traditional hospital gown. As any woman who has given birth knows, gowns are optional, and partners typically wear street clothes unless in a surgical setting. Not everyone\u2019s experience includes a scrub-clad father or rigid hospital protocol, especially not VIPs.<\/p>\n

Ironically, the backlash revealed something much deeper: a real illiteracy surrounding pregnancy, labor, and birth. Many people don\u2019t know the difference between being induced and being in active labor. Many don\u2019t realize that movement is encouraged, even in late pregnancy. That women can wear their own clothes in the delivery room. That partners aren\u2019t required to be in costume. And perhaps most strikingly, that being a week overdue isn\u2019t a medical emergency.<\/p>\n

NETFLIX THROWS MEGHAN MARKLE UNDER THE DOUBLE-DECKER BUS<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

To be fair, Markle\u2019s own caption wasn\u2019t medically precise. She wrote: \u201cBoth of our children were a week past their due dates\u2026 so when spicy food, all that walking and acupuncture didn\u2019t work\u2014there was only one thing left to do!\u201d Actually, there was one other thing: wait. Forty-one weeks isn\u2019t abnormal. Babies don\u2019t come with expiration dates, even if many mothers wish they did.<\/p>\n

Still, Markle managed to do something rare: She made a goofy, personal video that made her look human and made her harshest critics look utterly unhinged. For once, Meghan Markle didn\u2019t martyr herself. She danced and let the internet melt down around her.<\/p>\n

Bethany Mandel (@bethanyshondark<\/a>) is a homeschooling mother of six and a writer. She is the bestselling co-author of\u00a0Stolen Youth.<\/p>\n