Usually, people either pick up the phone to tell people close to them that they are expecting or make a formal announcement by sending out cards.
Now however you can make your pregnancy announcement on Facebook or another of the seemingly endless numbers of social networking sites around.
When to make the announcement?
While some pregnant women or couples choose to share their exciting news as soon as it is confirmed, others prefer to wait at least until the first trimester is past – perhaps for superstitious reasons or practical reasons because the risk of a miscarriage is highest during the first three months.
Many prefer to tell no one except close friends and family to begin with and share the news with others only later. Yet others prefer not to say anything until the baby bump actually starts to show.
Social media etiquette for announcing a pregnancy
If you are considering letting people know about your good news, consider the fact that a Facebook wall is a very public place to do so indeed.
Unless you use filters, everyone you are connected with is going to read the posts that you write on there. And then you have no control over who reposts your post without your consent or even knowledge.
If you make your announcement first on Facebook, consider the fact that people such as parents and other close friends may well be offended that you did not tell them first personally before announcing it to all and sundry.
So think about those feelings that may be hurt and other consequences of insensitive posts and reposts about your news before you decide to make a Facebook or other social media declaration about your news.
What about labor and the delivery?
According to a survey of over a thousand pregnant women conducted by American Baby magazine and Good Books, as many as 51% of the women polled said that they would record the birth by putting updates on social media. This would be by way of tweets and status.
We have become so used to sharing whatever is going on in our lives on our social networking site that we tend not to think twice about things like hurt feelings, consequences and other impacts of what we post.
This is why you need to be particularly careful about making public news that would earlier have been considered private and personal.
