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“So if u saw me while pregnant, no tf u didnt,” the caption of one TikTok against a viral, initially upbeat then aggressively downbeat sound, reads.

Another TikTok with the same sound is captioned, “not my finest hour or 9 months.”

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“Pregnancy nose” videos are, overall, lighthearted and fun, oft inviting kind comments from fellow new moms and pregnant people. Yet, there’s also something undeniably foreboding about the trend: Why are so few of us aware of pregnancy rhinitis, or for that matter, all the other pregnancy-based side effects? So many pregnancy-related conditions, whether pregnancy nose or postpartum depression, can be especially blindsiding and stressful, precisely because they’re so unexpected.

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The rising cultural fascination with pregnancy-related body horror content doesn’t seem to extend from voyeurism or schadenfreude, like all the horror movies increasingly exploiting pregnancy as fodder for shock factor. Instead, this trend is about reckoning with a culture of silence, secrecy, and stigma surrounding pregnancy.

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For a long time, pregnant people have been expected to weather a minefield of pregnancy-related complications and ailments without complaint, and certainly without warning. The conversations happening on social media are changing this and giving space for people to talk about shared experiences and help prepare each other. “I don’t want people who have had some of these more benign or cosmetic changes that happen in their pregnancy to be shamed or made to feel bad about how their body has changed,” Neal said. “But I do think social media can be helpful toward building community with other people that are going through something similar to you.”

Early on, young people are routinely failed by sexual health education classes. Upon becoming pregnant, people are inevitably hit with one surprise after another, often left blindsided by lack of warning about major issues—for example, that pregnancy can induce severe calcium deficiency resulting in your teeth rotting without proper care, or that fetal cells remain in the pregnant person’s body for decades (or sometimes permanently).

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Many would probably still choose to be pregnant, knowing these potential side effects exist, of course—but it’s a problem that so many people can be forced to make an uninformed choice, given how drastically and permanently pregnancy affects the body. Reproductive health providers can help address this, Neal said. More people planning to become pregnant should recognize the “underutilized value of the preconception visit” to ask all questions you might have about any aspect of pregnancy before becoming pregnant. But just as important as hearing and acknowledging other people’s stories, Neal emphasizes, is recognizing how unique each pregnancy is: “Just because it’s happened to a friend doesn’t mean it will happen to you.”