Fear of childbearing and egg freezing, how much influence does the spread of social emotions have on women’s reproductive choices?

Contemporary women are facing unprecedented difficulties in childbearing. How much influence do social media and health communication have on their childbearing choices? The Beijing Forum Health Communication Forum discussed how to resolve this problem.

Written by reporter Lai Tianying (Medical and Health Group) Edited by Liu Zhao

New Media Editor/Chen Xuanzhi

Fear of marriage and childbearing, yet advocating "freezing eggs", shows the fertility dilemma faced by contemporary women. At the same time, their fertility choices are constantly influenced by the spread of social discourse. At the Beijing Forum (2020) Health Communication Sub-Forum and the 3rd "Medical, Humanities and Media: 'Healthy China' and Health Communication International Seminar" held on November 7, 2020, the impact of social media and health communication on women's fertility choices became one of the hot topics.

The forum was hosted by the School of Journalism and Communication of Peking University, co-organized by the Health Industry Development and Communication Branch of the China News Culture Promotion Association, and voluntary services were provided by the Peking University Health Communication Association.

"Educational phobia" is a negative social emotion catalyzed by social media

Gao Rong from the School of Journalism and Communication at Peking University introduced the main research methods and conclusions of his paper "Reproductive Imagination: A Study of the Emotional Discourse of "Fear of Childbirth" on Sina Weibo" at the seminar. The author used the implementation of the universal two-child policy on January 1, 2016 as the time node, and screened Weibo posts with keywords such as fear of childbirth, not wanting to have children, and anti-childbirth. He used a web crawler to collect and analyze the original Weibo posts with more than 10,000 reposts, and studied what topics caused fear of childbirth and the emotional spread of fear of childbirth topics.

Gao Rong believes that China's fertility rate has been declining for 30 consecutive years, and the emergence of emotional discourse such as "fear of childbearing" reflects the opinions and attitudes of netizens in the Internet environment. "Fear of childbearing" is a common emotion among women of childbearing age. With the help of social media triggering, it has become a long-standing negative social emotion. There is no official definition of "fear of childbearing" in the current academic community. In fact, the understanding of childbearing is nothing more than "birth" and "raising". In this regard, "fear of childbearing" can also be defined as the worry and fear of women of childbearing age about reproduction, childbirth and raising children. Some people have a neutral attitude towards childbearing behavior, but hold the idea of ​​not having children, such as "DINK". Some people have concerns and fears about childbearing, and even resist childbearing behavior.

Gao Rong noticed that there is a group of women on the Internet who "check in on their fear of marriage and childbirth every day" when it comes to marriage and childbirth. "The instinctive fear of childbirth and the real anxiety are like a stone hitting the water, and the emotional discourse of 'fear of childbirth' on social media is like the 'water body' through which emotions spread. The fear of childbirth of some individual women has been linked to the 'fear of childbirth' complex of the group of unmarried women with children under the catalysis of social media."

The "fear of childbearing" sentiment is caused by many reasons. The first is the change in culture, concepts and ways of thinking. With the improvement of people's living standards, the overall cultural level and educational level of this generation of women of marriageable age are higher than those of previous generations, and their way of thinking is different from that of the previous generation. In addition, affected by the accelerated pace of reform and opening up, their concepts and consciousness are influenced and impacted by new trends, their thinking patterns have changed, their cognitive concepts have become more diversified, and the constraints of traditional culture and concepts on them have been relatively weakened. They no longer regard marriage and childbearing as the top priority in life. At the same time, the high cost of raising children and the increasing pressure of social competition have increased the mental cost of women giving birth.

The report specifically mentioned that the lack of confidence caused by the poor parenting environment has fostered a fear of parenting among women, such as netizens' comments on the Red Yellow Blue incident, concerns caused by the high cost of raising children, and concerns about widowed parenting.

▲ Parenting pressure (Picture from Sina Weibo)

How can we relieve this "fear of childbirth" emotion? Gao Rong said that, in fact, the relief of "fear of childbirth" emotions should be carried out with the joint efforts of individuals, medical institutions, online platforms and policy makers. For example, medical institutions should popularize reproductive health knowledge and help establish a rational understanding of childbirth. For the problem of the spread of childbirth anxiety in the "fear of childbirth" emotional discourse, relevant media organizations and platforms need to strengthen the content review system. In addition, individuals should also improve their ability to distinguish emotions from facts and enhance their stress resistance.

Most women have a superficial definition of success in egg freezing

In line with this, the "fear of childbearing" sentiment has fostered the admiration of egg freezing among women of childbearing age. Zhang Wenting from Jinan University gave a report titled "Temporary Delay of Childbearing: A Study on the Cognition of Women's Egg Freezing by Young Marriage- and Childbearing-Age People" at the 3rd "Medical, Humanities and Media: 'Healthy China' and Health Communication International Seminar". She retrieved more than 500 relevant notes on "Little Red Book", eliminated popular science articles and soft articles, and selected 122 egg freezing notes from 56 women for analysis. By observing the notes and community interactions, we can understand how they report and share their related experiences. The author also recruited 15 young marriage- and childbearing-age people who had no experience in egg freezing for interviews. The interviews also involved family members, male partners, etc.

▲Egg freezing diary (picture from Xiaohongshu)

After analysis and interviews, Zhang Wenting found that most women view egg freezing as a form of fertility insurance and physical consumption. "They view egg freezing as a reliable fertility insurance, which is related to their trust in egg freezing technology. For example, they find that egg retrieval does not cause any trouble in their current and future lives. They have learned about the principles and safety of the technology in advance, and have received a promise that it will not affect their future fertility. Their definition of egg freezing success mostly stays on the number of eggs retrieved, without considering the more complicated procedures after egg freezing."

Zhang Wenting also found that women who freeze their eggs are influenced by the consumption behavior of celebrities who freeze their eggs. Some people describe the freezing process as a "physical consumption" closely related to their middle-class identity, emphasizing the expenses required during the freezing process and strengthening their middle-class identity. In addition, most of these freezing egg note users describe freezing eggs as a new and trendy way that is not restricted by age and breaks through the constraints of time. It has become an outlet for coping with busy work and relieving the pressure of being unmarried, having children, and having a second child. It can effectively alleviate specific personal crises, such as being single at an older age and parents urging you to get married.

In fact, many countries currently have strict application requirements for egg freezing technology. China has explicitly prohibited single women and married women with normal fertility. Our country's laws stipulate that only couples with infertility who hold a marriage certificate, ID card, and birth permit can adopt egg freezing. In addition, egg freezing can also be used for some special groups, such as women with malignant tumors who have not given birth. Because chemotherapy can damage the ovaries and may cause infertility, they can preserve fertility by freezing eggs.

Finally, Zhang Wenting concluded that although egg freezing has affected women's understanding of their life trajectory in today's society, it has not changed women's life trajectory, including the pursuit of love and the issue of giving birth at an advanced age. Most of them have a superficial definition of the success of egg freezing. Everyone attaches great importance to fertility issues, which reflects the various pressures and anxieties faced by many women. Egg freezing is a way for modern women to relieve their own anxiety. I hope everyone will face the current phenomenon of egg freezing in a rational way.

Experts gathered to discuss health communication under the COVID-19 pandemic

The global pandemic of COVID-19 has profoundly affected the progress of human civilization. For this reason, this year's Beijing Forum has set up a special sub-forum on health communication. The relationship between women's reproductive choices and social communication is just one of the topics of the "Health Communication and Society" sub-forum in the forum. According to reports, this year's Beijing Forum (2020) Health Communication Sub-Forum has five sub-forums. In addition to "Health Communication and Society", the topics also cover "Public Health Crisis Communication and Risk Communication", "Health Education and Health Promotion", "Media and Health Communication" and "Doctor-Patient Communication and Communication Intervention" and other aspects.

The conference invited Professor Sun Shaojing, doctoral supervisor of the School of Journalism at Fudan University, deputy director of the Institute of Health Communication at Fudan University, and researcher of the National Cultural Innovation Research Center at Fudan University, Professor Rajiv Rimal, director of the Department of Health, Behavior and Sociology at Johns Hopkins University, and Professor Mohan Dutta of Communication at Massey University in New Zealand, as well as many scholars and experts from home and abroad to participate in the event. They conducted in-depth discussions online on how to give full play to the power of communication and promote the implementation of Healthy China.

The forum will also hold a roundtable discussion on health industry development and communication on the afternoon of November 8 to build a platform for communication between academia and industry. From November 10 to 11, the forum will also hold a practical technology workshop on tobacco control. At that time, the director of the Johns Hopkins University Global Tobacco Control Institute will announce cooperation plans such as the development of tobacco control MOOCs with the School of Journalism and Communication of Peking University.

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