Do you want your hospital to announce your delivery?

I have to admit, maybe I’m a naive Canadian, but it never occurred to me that hospitals would do this – especially in this day and age when people are trying to reclaim some of their privacy. I had never heard of hospitals announcing the day’s births on their website, with parents’ full names and all.

I only learned of this as I was reading the Sara Palin baby/grandbaby debate. Those who believe that she is the baby’s grandmother rather than his mother (Sarah Palin and her son with Down’s syndrome) are using the fact that the hospital she delivered at didn’t announce her child’s birth. After reading some more, I learned that this is common practice in many hospitals.

I truly am shocked. It seems that this is an opt-out practice rather than an opt-in. I’d be ok with a practice that says the parents can sign a paper saying “sure, announce my child’s birth on your website.” That way, the parents are making a conscious decision to do the announcement. But with opt-out issues, the parents have to know that the hospital does this and then they have to go out of their way to tell the hospital that they don’t want it. That seems wrong to me.

So – first of all – am I the only one in North America who didn’t know about this practice? And, what do you think about it? I know that I announced my children’s birth in the local daily paper, but this was also before the Internet was all over the place as it is now.

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Tags: pregnancy blog, sarah palin, down’s syndrome, birth announcements