Childbirth can be a scary experience, something Gwyneth Paltrow knows firsthand.
During an appearance on Dax Shepard’s “Armchair Expert” podcast this week, the actress revealed that she nearly died giving birth to her eldest daughter Apple. The Goop founder shares the 17-year-old teen and son Moses, 15, with her ex-husband, Coldplay frontman, Chris Martin.
Paltrow made the bombshell reveal while discussing how social media creates pressures for women’s bodies to look a certain way — even after pregnancy.
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“I had two caesareans [C-sections]. My daughter was an emergency [C-section], it was crazy, we almost died. It was, like, not good,” Paltrow confessed. “Anyway, there’s a big scar across your body and you’re like, ‘Oh wow, that didn’t use to be there.’ And it’s not that it’s bad or you want to judge it but you’re just like, ‘Oh my God.’”
She didn’t share any further details.
The 49-year-old also got real about what social media probably would have done to her self esteem if it were around when she was having children.
“Thank God there wasn’t Instagram when I had babies because now it’s like, if I see someone, ‘Oh, I just gave birth two weeks ago and I have a completely washboard stomach,’ and I’m like, ‘Wow that’s not what I [looked like],’” Paltrow said about unrealistic body expectations.
“And like great, more power to the lady with the washboard [abs] but that is totally the exception. And then now we’re being fed all of these other images of what we’re supposed to look like all the time — babies, no babies, whatever.”
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The wellness mogul also said women needed to support other women to eliminate judgement and curb impossible standards of beauty.
“I think women really need to be friends with each other and all the judgment around how you have a baby, do you breastfeed, do you not, this that, are you going to work, are you not going to work,” she stated. “Guess what, whatever it is, it’s OK. I feel like we also have this weird thing around, it’s past perfectionism, it’s like I can do this gargantuan task that’s superhuman and why? For what?”
Paltrow previous opened up about experiencing a miscarriage back in 2013.
During a cover story with the Daily Mail, she shared that her children wanted a third sibling and that she was considering trying to conceive again at the time.
“I am missing my third. I am thinking about it. But I had a really bad experience when I was pregnant with my third and it didn’t work out and I nearly died. So I am, like, ‘Are we good here or should we go back and try again?’” she said.
