Moms First Inaugural Motherhood Summit Busts Mom Myths

A woman’s fertility plummets at 35 years old. Avoid eating sushi at all costs during pregnancy. If you don’t breastfeed your baby, you’re a bad mother. There are enough pregnancy and parenting myths—which every woman has undoubtedly heard, regardless of mom status—to fill a book (series). But myths were made to be busted. And this week, some of them were.

On May 14, nonprofit Moms First, in collaboration with InStyle, hosted its first-ever summit on motherhood, where thousands of mothers and allies tuned in for a day of programming centered around mom culture and a commitment to gender equality. During the panel titled, “Debunking Mom Myths: The History and Data Behind Motherhood,” moderated by InStyle’s Executive Editor Danielle McNally, Parentdata CEO and four-time author Emily Oster, Real Self-Care founder and Perinatal Psychiatrist Pooja Lakshmin, M.D., and qualitative sociologist and author Gretchen Sisson, discussed the false narratives that have contributed to systemic failures in our country and gaslit millions of moms.

They came to set the record straight about what being a mother looks like—starting with an unequivocal declaration that it is not, in fact, a one-size-fits-all role. “There's a very broad myth, which is that there is a right way to do it…there's a correct way to parent, and we just need to find that and do it. And if you don't do it, you are a failure, and so is your child,” Oster said. “I would just like to completely dispense with this idea that there is one correct way, and replace it with there is a right way to do it for you.”

Medical guidelines aren’t, or at least shouldn’t be, universal, either. Oster offers that effective medical advice needs to be contextualized for each patient. Yes, doctors are experts in their field of practice, but mothers are experts of their circumstances. Medical conversations need to connect the data and medical evidence with the patient’s preferences. That the latter is rarely taken into account can contribute to the feelings of guilt and shame moms often feel.

And it’s not just a matter of preference. Lakshmin reminds us that medical guidelines often neglect to consider social determinants of health (i.e. conditions such as economic stability, support network, nutrition access, etc.)—even she did at one point. Lakshmin shares that while she was studying at George Washington University, she learned that mothers who got four to six consecutive hours of sleep significantly reduced their risk for postpartum depression or anxiety. “Now, at that time, I was not a mother yet, and so, I actually said this to patients,” she explained. “They looked at me as if I was the devil.”

She said she failed to consider whether her patient was a single mom or a partnered mom, whether her patient or her patient’s partner had paid parental leave, whether her patient had relatives nearby or could afford extra care. “[The medical community is] changing, for sure, it's changing, but the focus is still on the pharmacology and the biological treatments,” Lakshmin said. 

Oster brought up another pesky factor in this equation: guilt. When faced with a quandary like get enough sleep for yourself or breastfeed your child, she said many mothers will forgo the former because it “feels selfish.” “We need to understand that actually taking care of the parent and taking care of the family unit in a broader sense is the key to taking care of the baby,” Oster told the audience.

So, how do we fix these problems mothers are facing? To start, Sisson suggested we push back on the idea that individual choice is the guiding principle.

Take breastfeeding as an example. Sisson explained that a mother's decision to breastfeed (or not) can be shaped by things like her employer’s policy around breastfeeding or her ability to have a flexible work schedule to travel with her kids. “You have to think about how individual choices are reflective of the world that we are offering to mothers and how we can offer something more,” she said.

“People will only make good choices if they have good options available to them,” Sisson continued. “If we put the burden of…this on each individual mother, each individual family, to navigate your own path to having it all, right? Then you miss the opportunity to make a collective call for action.”

Lakshmin advised mothers to have a “both/and” approach. They need to both recognize the system is broken and stand up for themselves within that broken system; it’s the only way to catalyze collective change.

“If you are a birthing person, if you are going to the doctor, you have to fight. You do have to advocate for yourself. And I tell all my patients that, and it sucks. It shouldn't be like that,” Lakshmin encouraged. “We have to be okay with exerting [ourselves] and going out of our comfort zones. And when we're all doing that, then it makes room and it gives permission for others.”

Correction: This article previously misspelled Dr. Pooja Lakshmin’s last name. We regret the error.

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