The Pregnancy Circus
- Madhukar Dama
- 1 day ago
- 9 min read
How Hospitals, Brands, Experts & Influencers Turn a Natural Process into a Big, Profitable Drama
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Opening: Welcome to the Pregnancy Show
Pregnancy used to be a quiet, natural journey, guided by family and older women. Now it has become a public show. Scans, social media posts, branded clothes, and doctor's orders have replaced simple care. Everyone makes money — except the mother.
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1. The Medical Drama
🎪 The Scan Obsession
Scans are done too often. Every small thing is shown as a big problem. Fear is created even when nothing is wrong.
🎪 Planned C-Sections
Many private hospitals push for surgery, even when it's not needed. It's easier for doctors and more profitable. Natural births are ignored.
🎪 Doctors in Full Control
Doctors expect full obedience. Women are told to follow orders, even when they have questions or instincts. The mother is not the boss — the system is.
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2. Pills and Injections Everywhere
🎪 Too Many Tablets
Pregnant women are told they have low iron, calcium, or thyroid. Medicines become daily routine. No one asks if the problem is real.
🎪 Fear Through Injections
Vaccines are pushed strongly. No proper explanation. You are told you're careless if you ask questions. Consent is just a formality.
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3. Beauty Pressure During Pregnancy
🎪 Stretch Mark Creams
Stretch marks are normal, but the market sells expensive creams saying you must avoid them. Natural signs of birth are treated like a problem.
🎪 Lose Weight Fast
Even before full recovery, women are pushed to look slim. Belly bands, fitness videos, and diet plans add pressure.
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4. Food Confusion
🎪 Fancy Pregnancy Foods
Simple home foods are replaced with expensive laddoos and powders. Brands sell what grandmothers gave, but in shiny packets.
🎪 Fear of Normal Foods
Women are told not to eat papaya, pineapple, and many other foods — often without reason. Confusion and fear grow.
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5. Emotional Struggles
🎪 Always Be Happy
People expect pregnant women to smile and feel lucky. No one talks about tiredness, sadness, or worry. Real feelings are ignored.
🎪 Apps Replacing Family
Pregnancy apps tell you what to do every day. But they can't replace the warmth and support of real people.
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6. Society's Pressure
🎪 Be the Ideal Mother
Everyone — family, neighbors, even strangers — gives advice. Too active? Too lazy? Too thin? Everyone has an opinion.
🎪 Online Pregnancy Competitions
Social media has made pregnancy a show. Fancy announcements, baby bump photos, gender reveals — all add pressure.
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7. Old Wisdom Pushed Aside
🎪 Traditional Oil is Seen as Dangerous
Simple old methods like belly massage, walking, or herbal teas are called unsafe. But machines and drugs are considered safe — even when they cause problems.
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8. After Delivery is Forgotten
🎪 Get Back to Work Fast
Women are expected to recover quickly. Bleeding, pain, sleeplessness — no one talks about it. Support is missing.
🎪 Feeding Confusion
There is too much pressure to breastfeed, but no real help. Formula is judged, breastfeeding is judged. No matter what you do, someone complains.
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9. Who is in Control?
🎪 Men at the Top
Most hospitals, drug companies, and decisions are controlled by men. Traditional women healers were removed. Women’s wisdom was ignored. The womb became a business.
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10. Walk Away from the Show
It’s time to trust your body again. Choose what feels right. Use family support, old wisdom, and natural ways. Say no to fear and pressure.
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Final Words: Break the Tent
Refuse the drama. Refuse the rules made by others. Trust your body. Pregnancy is not a public show. It’s your own journey, your strength.
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Healing Dialogue:
“You Don’t Owe Anyone a Performance”
Scene:
Morning sun glows through neem trees near Madhukar’s mud home. Ananya sits on a straw mat, her back straight but tired. She is five months pregnant. She has never felt so watched, so instructed, so unsure of her own body. Madhukar pours her a warm drink made of dried tulsi and ajwain. His two daughters giggle nearby, making garlands out of hibiscus.
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Ananya (softly):
Everyone’s telling me what to eat, how to walk, how to sleep, even how to smile. If I skip a laddu, they say the baby will be weak. If I wear loose clothes, they say I don’t look like a proper pregnant woman. I feel… trapped.
Madhukar (gently):
They’ve put a spotlight on you, child. But you didn’t ask to be on stage.
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1. The Illusion of Control
Madhukar:
The more systems move away from nature, the more they try to control it. They don’t trust a seed to sprout — they must scan the soil. They don’t trust a tree to bear fruit — they must measure the sunlight. And now, they don’t trust a woman to give birth — unless it's in their machine, under their light, with their stamp.
Ananya:
But what if something goes wrong?
Madhukar:
There is care. And there is control. You are asking for care. They are selling control.
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2. The Fear Market
Ananya:
My doctor said if I don’t gain exactly 12 kilos, there could be complications. So now I eat when I’m full, and I still feel guilty.
Madhukar:
Fear has become the new nutrition. They don’t just give you food — they give you anxiety with every spoon.
Ananya:
But isn’t it better to be safe?
Madhukar:
Not if the safety comes with shame. Not if they make you fear your own hunger and ignore your body’s voice.
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3. Your Body Knows
Madhukar (placing his hand on the earth):
The banyan doesn’t compare itself to the tamarind. One grows deep, the other spreads wide. Your body has its own rhythm. If you listen — really listen — it will tell you what it needs. A mango at noon, a slow walk after sunset, a glass of warm decoction before bed. Not because an app said so. Because your womb whispered it.
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4. The Performance Trap
Ananya:
I feel like I’m always being watched. My mother-in-law keeps taking photos. She posts them with captions like, “Glowing mommy to be.” But I’m not glowing. I’m tired. Sometimes I cry in the bathroom and I don’t even know why.
Madhukar:
Because you’re carrying more than a baby. You’re carrying everyone’s expectations. Their dreams. Their rules. Their judgment.
Ananya (eyes wet):
And I don’t even know if I want to carry all that.
Madhukar:
Then drop it. Just like a snake sheds its skin.
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5. The Weight of Words
Ananya:
They said I shouldn’t wear black. They said I shouldn’t listen to sad songs. They said if I cry too much, the baby will be weak.
Madhukar (smiling kindly):
And yet, your great-grandmother wore a black saree to the fields and sang mourning songs while harvesting rice. Her children were strong as oxen.
Ananya (laughing softly):
You always make it sound so simple.
Madhukar:
Because it is. The body wants simplicity. It’s the world that sells complication.
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6. Your Baby Is Already Listening
Madhukar (handing her a hibiscus flower):
Right now, your baby doesn’t want your fear. Or your forced happiness. It wants your truth. If you are tired, it wants your rest. If you are sad, it wants your breath. If you are silent, it wants your heartbeat.
Ananya:
So I don’t have to pretend?
Madhukar:
Never. The baby doesn’t need a perfect mother. It needs a present one.
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7. Exit the Circus
Ananya:
I keep feeling guilty for not “doing pregnancy right.” Everyone seems to have a plan, a guide, a checklist.
Madhukar:
What if I told you… the real guide is already inside you? That your grandmother gave it to your mother without saying a word. That it lives in your bones. That it wakes up every time you sit still and breathe.
Ananya:
Then why don’t I hear it?
Madhukar:
Because the circus is too loud. Step out. Sit under a tree. Remove your slippers. Let your feet touch the soil. Let the noise fade.
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8. Healing Isn’t Something You Do
Madhukar:
Healing isn’t eating this or drinking that. It is unburdening. Unlearning. Unperforming.
Ananya (sighs deeply):
I think for the first time in weeks, I’m breathing.
Madhukar:
Then today, healing has begun.
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(Madhukar hands her a small jar of herbal oil.)
Madhukar:
Tonight, warm this gently. Rub a little on your belly. Not for medicine. For memory. To remember this: You are not weak. You are wild. You are not a patient. You are a passage.
Ananya (smiling through tears):
Thank you. For giving me back my pregnancy.
Madhukar:
You never lost it. You just got pushed into the tent. Now walk out. The circus doesn’t deserve you.
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Pregnancy Circus
They sold your womb a front-row seat to a show you never bought a ticket for.
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You didn’t know it was a circus when you peed on that stick.
It looked quiet. Like a sunrise. Like a small private fire in your belly.
The kind of secret you’d whisper to a tree. Or your grandmother’s ghost.
But then they came. The doctors. The apps. The aunties. The algorithms.
They told you what you were carrying wasn’t just a baby —
It was a brand. A performance. A risk.
A possible emergency, a potential disaster, a fragile miracle… all at once.
Suddenly, you were on stage.
Stretched under white lights.
Stared at. Prodded. Scanned.
Made to smile. Made to glow.
Made to shut up and obey.
You were told you were sacred, but treated like glass.
You were told you were powerful, but stripped of control.
You were told you were lucky — and then fed pills like they were prayers.
They measured your belly like it was a balloon.
Too small? Danger.
Too big? Diabetes.
Too round? C-section.
Too low? Bed rest.
Too high? Worry.
They made you gain weight, then made you feel ashamed for gaining it.
They gave you pink books full of rules,
and said your womb now belonged to science, and your behavior to society.
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You weren’t allowed to just carry a baby.
You had to carry their expectations.
You had to look joyful.
You had to glow — not sweat, not cry, not rage, not collapse.
You had to eat almonds at 4am.
You had to drink milk, even if it made you gag.
You had to avoid jackfruit, and papaya, and anything your grandma thrived on.
And for God’s sake, you had to keep smiling.
Because they said — your feelings affect the baby.
As if you weren’t the baby’s shelter, the blood, the drumbeat.
As if the baby was watching you like an HR manager in the sky.
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They threw products at your belly.
Creams for stretch marks.
Apps for baby kicks.
Bands to hold up your bump like it was broken furniture.
They told you not to trust your body.
They told you to trust machines.
They told you to trust their calendar, their tests, their numbers.
They told you to worry if your body was too calm.
And they never taught you to be still. To listen. To rest.
They told you to “stay active” — so you wouldn’t become lazy.
They told you to walk — not for joy, but for labor.
They told you to eat — not with pleasure, but as prescription.
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And then came the cameras.
Instagram. Facebook. WhatsApp status updates.
Pregnancy turned into a fashion show.
“Look at her cute bump!”
“OMG baby shower goals!”
“Gender reveal — blue balloons or pink smoke?”
No one asked if you were sleeping.
If your back hurt.
If you were scared.
If your nipples were already sore.
If you felt like a stranger in your skin.
No one said,
“It’s okay if you’re not excited every minute.”
“It’s okay if you want to scream.”
“It’s okay if you want to hide.”
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They planned your delivery like an event.
“C-section on Thursday, before Ganesh Chaturthi, lucky day.”
“Doctor is free that morning, we’ll get the epidural ready.”
“Don’t worry beta, you won’t feel a thing.”
That was the problem.
You weren’t allowed to feel anything.
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Your ancestors squatted under neem trees.
Rubbed castor oil on their bellies.
Listened to birds, not machines.
They birthed babies and buried shame.
But today, you can’t even eat til ke laddoos
without someone telling you it’s “unscientific.”
They’ve replaced aunties with influencers.
Midwives with machines.
Warmth with wires.
You were never sick.
But they treated you like a patient.
They turned your strength into a condition.
They turned your choices into a checklist.
And when the baby is born — they forget you exist.
“Back to normal now.”
Which normal?
The one where you bleed alone in the bathroom for weeks?
The one where you cry with cracked nipples at 2am?
The one where everyone asks about the baby —
but no one asks if your stitches hurt, or if you’ve eaten?
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And still —
You survived.
You made a human inside your body.
You crossed rivers of hormones, fears, dreams, and surrender.
You created life in a system that tried to make you feel like a mistake.
You did not fail.
You simply refused to perform.
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Maybe one day soon, another woman will sit under a tree like you did.
She will ask, “Can I trust myself?”
She will whisper, “Am I allowed to do this differently?”
And someone — not in a white coat, not with a degree,
but with kindness in her eyes and cracked heels from standing too long —
will say:
“Yes.
Yes, you can.”
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Close the circus tent.
Burn the rulebook.
Eat with joy.
Cry if you must.
Birth like thunder, or like rain — in your own time, in your own way.
You’re not a show.
You’re the storm.
You’re the soil.
You’re the drum.
You’re the damn miracle they forgot to honour.
Not because you’re glowing.
Not because you smiled.
Not because you obeyed.
But because you were always enough,
Even when you stopped pretending.
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