Women Posting Home Pregnancy Test Results Online Is New TMI Trend

Oversharing is, at this point, routine on the internet. It seemed that we’d seen it all before—because people had shown it all. But Slate has picked up on a new trend in TMI-ness they’ve dubbed “WombTube” in which women vlog the results of their home pregnancy tests, sharing their news with world wide web well before clearing the first three months (when miscarriages are most common) and in some cases before they’ve even missed their first period.

It’s not that I think that there’s anything wrong with the unbridled excitement of these moms-to-be. (I’ve posted a video of myself getting a colonic. How could I possibly judge a woman for peeing on a stick online when I’ve pooped in a tube?) But I do think it’s a little bit bizarre for a couple of reasons, one of which being what I’ve mentioned above about the risk of miscarriage, especially considering that many of these vloggers are part of the Trying to Conceive (TTC) community, documenting their sometimes troubled road to conception on YouTube, which is occasionally plagued with the loss of pregnancy. This is the case with one TTC vlogger who stated that she was attempting to conceive again after a very recent miscarriage. She had previously vlogged about that pregnancy, but removed those videos after miscarrying. Despite that personal emotional roller coaster, she shared the results of her First Response test several days before her missed period.

The other thing that’s a little weird about the WombTubers is that despite their very public practice of sharing their pregnancy results (and sometimes cups of urine) online for the entire world to see, they seem to be otherwise incredibly private people. None of them who were approached for a quote would respond to Slate’s Marisa Meltzer’s questions.