KLEVEN: Facebook not a place to advertise pregnancy

Your fetus does not belong on Facebook.

This is not Fetusbook, it is not a place for you to chart the progress of your unborn child.

I have become extremely intolerant of girls (and some guys) who use their baby’s ultrasound image as their profile picture on Facebook. Don’t get me wrong, I like a baby as much as the next girl, but this is not the appropriate outlet to showcase your baby’s every move.

I am reaching the age where people I know are beginning to settle down and have planned children, and there is of course an abundance of happy couples with unplanned pregnancies. I’m happy for you, I genuinely am, but please stop flooding my Facebook feed with pictures of your stomach.

I’m not saying you’re not allowed to take these pictures. Take them. Print them out and put them in a scrapbook. If you get them done professionally they can be really tasteful and a good keepsake to have, but social networking should not become the platform to make your (pregnant) modeling debut.

Now, I know some people will use the defense that they live far away from their families, and this is their way to share an important milestone with the people they love. It’s a common practice for military couples who are forced to spend a lot of time apart.

I understand that Facebook is a good way to connect, but I don’t care. Knock it off. You can just as easily send that same picture in a message to your family members and friends, it doesn’t need to be out there for the world to see. Email is also a good alternative.

I also want to wag the finger at the people who encourage these boastful mothers. Please stop commenting on how big they are getting, or how adorable their fetus is. It’s a fetus. The only people it is adorable to are the parents.

By commenting on their every picture, you’re just feeding into their constant need for attention throughout their pregnancy. And if a woman needs that much attention just for being pregnant, she’s probably not mature enough to be pregnant.

So I applaud the mothers who keep their pregnancies on the down low in the social networking scene. I enjoy viewing the two pictures you posted of your baby after it was born. Very cute, you did a great job.

But the rest of you, have some Facebook manners, and please quit with the fetus frenzy.