I deleted social media before giving birth - here’s why!

chapters

• why delete social media?

• going into labour

• social media was not helping

• emotional self-regulation

• distraction

• self-comparison

• did it make a difference?

For context, my due date for when baby comes was in May 2025, and about one-week before, I had this epiphany moment…

Why don’t I delete social media?

By that, I mean’t Instagram and Tiktok.

I don’t know why I never had that thought before (maybe because I never deleted it since I first got it 10 years ago, or so)!

I mean, social media is super entertaining and nice to go on when you are simply just relaxing.

BUT.

I was about to give birth at any point, and let me tell you, there was a lot going on internally…

In this blog post, I share why I deleted social media before giving birth, and what difference it made (if any) to me!

why delete social media?

So, let’s get into the TEA.

To clarify, I didn’t delete (or deactivate) my ACCOUNT, I only deleted the apps-off of my phone.

And this wasn’t a permanent decision either.

This was with the intention of being a temporary act.

WHY?

Well, I will have a whole other blog post going up soon on the anticipation of childbirth, and what it actually feels like (check on my blog posts here), but in-short:

Knowing I was going to be giving birth was OVERWHELMING ME, and social media WAS NOT HELPING.

To break it down, what I mean by this is…

going into labour

Women go into labour all the time!

It is not something I have ever really THOUGHT about.

It’s just part of nature, and how life works, right?

Except, when YOU ARE THE ONE who is about to go through it.

I am the woman who will be:

• pushing out a baby from my body

• bleeding

• going through the pains (pains that I have no idea what will feel like)

• going through the uncertainty of how everything will actually turn out (for example, like emergency c-sections)

That changes A LOT!!!

One element of what I said earlier was how “overwhelming” it felt.

For some women, it might be exciting since they are anticipating meeting their baby.

However, for me, it is more of a nervous feeling, since I never wanted to have kids and this pregnancy was completely unplanned.

I can say that from 38 weeks (usually the moment baby could come earlier, but FULL-term is 40-weeks) I was feeling quite:

• nervous

• overwhelmed

• scared

• in anticipation

• tense

• thinking A LOT

• scared that baby would come any second and life would change

• scared I was going into labour

Now, let’s tackle the other half of the equation of:

What does social media have to do with it?

social media was not helping

Well, directly?

Social media wasn’t ACTIVELY making my feelings worse, or CAUSING my feelings of nervousness around labour, since this was present regardless.

However, social media was not helping, and if anything…

WAS GETTING IN THE WAY of me feeling better.

Why that is? - you may be asking. Well:

• social media was taking away from me being able to self-regulate my emotions

• was acting as a distraction

• was making me feel worse in different ways; relating to self-comparison (both body image, and just life)

To elaborate on these points, what I EXACTLY mean is:

emotional self-regulation

Whenever I was relaxing (which was a lot more often now that I was on maternity leave, and was prioritising resting as much as possible), I would have the HABIT of going on Instagram and Tiktok, EVEN IF there was nothing for me to do there, and EVEN IF I had just checked about 5-minutes ago.

I would end-up DOOM SCROLLING for an hour or more, at a time.

I know many people do this, and it’s not completely uncommon.

But given how sensitive I already was with the feelings surrounding labour, this was valuable time I could be using to try and actually HELP REGULATE MYSELF, and genuinely relax myself, rather than heighten my feelings even more.

And I mean GENUINELY relax myself, like maybe instead I could be:

• people watching outside

• touching some grass (or going for an extra walk, slowly)

• taking deep breaths

• spending those moments with myself and in peace-and-quiet

This was a realisation that came to me quite late, in my pregnancy journey, only at about 38 weeks and half pregnant, since I wasn’t consciously trying to not help myself.

It was all out of habit, and had been how I had done things up until then, so I hadn’t questioned it.

However, there were bigger, more energy-consuming things happening in life, like LABOUR, that needed more of my presence and self-loving, to be able to support and soothe myself.

And spending so much time on social media wasn’t allowing myself to see that through, and show-up for myself like that.

However, I didn’t know any better at the time, and was simply doing what I thought was good for me, which was just chilling on the sofa for hours on my phone.

Which, once again, not a “bad thing”, but to me, it wasn’t doing me any good.

WHICH leads me to my next point…

distraction

Social media was unintentionally acting as a distraction for me.

I was seeking dopamine from the content I consumed from these platforms, because in real life, I was going through all these emotions that were hard to feel, and hard to process.

Pair that with the reality of the unknown; NOT KNOWING how life would be as a mum, attached with what postpartum would be (with the very bad reputation it gets online), it was EASY to distract myself.

Looking back now, I know I wasn’t TRYING to distract myself.

I thought I was simply entertaining myself, since in moments where I had nothing to do, it felt like the thing to give me amusement.

HOWEVER…

Every time I would come off social media, I WOULDN’T FEEL TOO GREAT, and if anything, my mood would be way lower, than when I had first gone onto those platforms.

I was VERY AWARE that I was experiencing lower mood BECAUSE of the time I was spending on social media.

So, up to now, social media was taking away TIME from me self-regulating the uncomfortable emotions I was going through (with labour fast-approaching), and was acting as a distraction for me to temporarily escape what I was going through.

ON TOP OF THIS, being on social media was lowering my mood even further, due to…

self-comparison

Social media is already known for triggering self-comparison, in all sorts of ways for everyone; whether it’s comparing lifestyles, bodies, relationships, career development, and so on.

However, without much surprise, my personal SPECIFIC TRIGGERS were:

1. body and self-image

2. lifestyle

Specially with pregnancy emotions, and managing an unplanned pregnancy (as an ongoing process of adjustment EVEN at 39 weeks), I feel extra vulnerable emotionally and mentally to these triggers.

To create an even more vivid image of what I feel when going on Instagram and Tiktok that make me feel bad for comparison, specially when pregnant is:

1. seeing all the content of gorgeous girls with super fit bodies, feeling themselves

2. contenSot of carefree girlies travelling the world, or having no kids and doing what they want with their day

LET ME SAY…

I am all for supporting other women, and I am a firm believer that other women’s beauty and success does NOT take away from our own.

So, it’s amazing to see the content and see other Queens do life THEIR WAY and with the most happiness and confidence.

However, these two types of content only HIGHLIGHT my current insecurities:

1. my poorer self-image pregnant (I have shared in other blog posts about having a bigger THAN AVERAGE bump, gaining weight, no longer fitting into your favourite outfits, but also the lack of predictability over how your body will grow; like stretch marks, how it will change)

2. my fear of motherhood (ALL shared here with you girlies on the blog; from never wanting to kids, to having an unplanned pregnancy, to making a decision, to adjusting and seeking the positives as I go, to preparing for CHANGE without giving up who I AM and WANT TO BE).

FOR EXAMPLE:

When I see videos of girlies in their 20s travelling the world, going on solo dates with all the FREEDOM without kids, girlies who have super fit and toned bodies from working-out or doing Pilates…

ALL OF THAT, makes me feel less-than because I have not accepted or leaned into my current reality.

It’s not because of those gorgeous girlies, but it is because of MYSELF.

Nor do I know how happy I will be with this reality, that I never wanted, planned or ever even imagined for myself.

(As I constantly mention, of course we all have a choice and I made my own to continue this pregnancy, but it was out of a greater resistance for the other option and my beliefs).

I know this is my own internal work that I need to do, but it can’t completely be done without going through motherhood and actually seeing how it goes, how I react, how it feels, how i adjust.

It is just so OUT OF my control, and is something that can also completely surprise me in a good way.

But I won’t know until it happens.

Maybe AFTER, I can be more at-peace with my lifestyle, and with my body (once I can recover and strengthen again / have more control over my body again) and can interact with this content and exposure to other realities, without feeling triggered or inferior by it.

But for now, that isn’t the case and awareness of this fact makes me responsible to do something about it.

And FOR ME, the culmination of all these factors made it CRYSTAL CLEAR to me, in a light-bulb moment, that I should simply…

(solution:) DELETE SOCIAL MEDIA.

So, that’s what I did.

I deleted social medai before giving birth, since I know I am too vulnerable to have it right now.

And the difference and CHANGED I NOTICED were almost immediate…

did it make a difference?

YES. ALL THE DIFFERENCE.

How exactly?

I woke up the next morning, and felt immediately LIGHTER.

Probably because I knew I no longer had that trigger on my phone anymore, which felt alleviating but also very self-loving.

The other MAIN DIFFERENCE was that i ACTUALLY started foing more IN REAL LIFE.

I was no longer spending hours of my day watching others live their life.

Since, I no longer had social media on my phone to scroll, I replaced thtime with ANYTHING ELSE, which usually involved DOING MORE in real-life, like:

• going on an extra walk per day, which felt amazing and helped with self-regulating my emotions

• connecting more with loved ones in conversation, calls or in-person

• relying more on hobbies (baking, Nintendo DS) and Netflix (comedies and feel-good are my fave!) for entertainment

• blogging a lot, to my surprise! - I was mean’t to take a break from blogging in this late stage of pregnancy, but I felt a lot more mental clarity after deleting social media, and felt inspired so I followed that organic urge and made use of my creativity to create quality content that aligned with how I felt

• started selling clothes on Vinted - as a way to clear-out clothes but also try to make some extra money (so far: £0, but I will make a separate blog post if I end up making some good money from any side hustle I try during my leave!)

AS A RESULT:

This left me feeling more fulfilled, more strengthened in my connections and relationships,. lighter, more in-tune with mySELF, happier and more relaxed.

Has this completely erased my nervous feelings surrounding labour? NO, but…

It HAS DRASTICALLY REDUCED and calmed down because of this indirect influence (and consequence) of THE ACT of deleting these platforms from my phone, and from my life, for the time being.

SeekiNonetheless, I’m super proud of myself for getting around to it!
(The attachment to social media can sometimes feel stronger ahaha).

Personally, ng people I love, things I love, and having less stimulation, less negative triggers, and more time for nature and space to breathe have all been the consequence of no longer having social media, AND replacing that time with all the things that GENUINELY fill my cup up.

My dopamine now comes EVEN MORE from genuine sources, and I experience more of it.

This way of living (social media-less) makes me feel-good more, which helps combat the nerves or discomfort around labour and any doubts around this new life to come.

Very clearly, deleting social media was the best decision for me!

I would have done it a lot sooner, if I had known it would have been so POSITIVE for me.

I feel like deleting social media has protected my peace, and reduced this negative risk factor for potential feelings of dissatisfaction through this end-of-pregnancy and postpartum.

Nonetheless, I am beyond proud of myself for getting around to it!

The attachment to social media can feel so real sometimes ahaha.

Now, of course, you can try influence the algorithm and choose to skip seeing certain types of content on social media, but you will ALWAYS be subject to that exposure to not being able to un-see or be untriggered by it.

So, honestly...

My advice to any girlies experiencing the same would be to: delete social media just like I did.

But also, we are all so different, so see what is best for YOU because deep-down, you probably already know what that is.

This is simply what has worked for me!

Hopefully, this can share some insight and shed some light onto opening our perspective on NOT-SO-OBVIOUS things we can do for ourselves, to support ourselves and pour love into ourselves during pregnancy, postpartum, and LIFE.

Things we wouldn’t so easily think of, but that could make a world of a difference to our REAL LIFE.

Own your Womanhood. Own your Time.

♡

I’ll be logging updates throughout this whole journey as a mother-to-be, working to be an entrepreneur, but to also still preserve the girlhood within, to try and be her best self, and live her happiest life, so keep-up with me through the blog!

I release a new blog post every Friday at 1pm! (UK-time)

Let me know if you’re in a similar headspace (pregnant or not), being in our 20s is confusing, and taking control of our story is the only way we can take ownership of our happiness and live out our dream life.

I document my unwanted pregnancy journey at 25, taking control of my narrative, figuring out being a girl in my 20s, chasing my dream life, and conquering my boss babe dream of becoming a self-employed, entrepreneur / Blogger!