Hilary Duff Explains Why She Wanted Her Son To See Her Give Birth
Hilary Duff shares badass reason why she wanted her nine-year-old son Luca to see her give birth
Hilary Duff just gave welcomed her third child, a daughter named Mae, during a home water birth surrounded by her husband Matthew Koma and her son Luca, 9, and daughter Banks, 2. Although she had someone look after Banks when she was delivering Mae, Duff said it was super important to her to have her nine-year-old son see what a badass his mother was and we’ll cheers to that.
“It was kind of important for me [for Luca to be there] because I’m really big on being open and honest with him about how strong women are and what childbirth looks like,” Duff told The Informed Pregnancy Podcast. “He knows all about periods and it’s important for me to normalize that conversation with him for all the women that are going to be in his life.”
Duff said she wanted her son to understand what human “strength” actually looks like.
“I think that sometimes a 9-year-old boy is like, ‘Well, men have bigger muscles,’ and, like, yeah, but we bring life into this world. We move a baby through our body,” she adds. “There is a big topic of conversation in the house right now: equality, and strength coming from different places besides your muscles or whatever.”
Hilary Duff/Instagram
Unfortunately, Duff’s big water birth with the family didn’t go quite to plan. Duff says the birth happened so fast (labor and delivery was just over three hours) that Luca, whom she shares with ex-husband Mike Comrie, reportedly ran into the room “right as I was pulling the baby out.”
“He wanted to be there for it, but it happened so fast he missed it,” Duff added.
She also said she wanted her son to see the variety of ways that a person can give birth.
“I want him to someday, when he’s ready to have a child with his partner or wife or whatever, I want him to be able to respect the way that she wants to be able to have a baby, and if that’s at home, that can be at home, if that’s in a hospital, it will be hospital,” she said. “There’s many different ways.”
Duff said she shared her story with the podcast because she “loves hearing others birth stories. It’s absolutely amazing and fascinating to me that women are capable of such tremendous things…. hope this helps another mama as listening to these amazing interviews further educates and inspires me!”
Mae James Bair was born on March 24, 2021 — congratulations to the fam, it seems like Mae has quite the feminist older bro leading the way. What a joy.
