Pregnancy Scan Pictures Used In "expected: Child" Profile On Facebook-cute Or Creepy?

The world's biggest social network, Facebook, rolled out a new application in late July 2011, which allows parents who are expecting a child to list their unborn baby under "Friends and Family", under the profile option "Expected: Child." The application lets users add pregnancy ultrasound scan pictures to identify the new family member. Other information along with the pregnancy scans photo which can be included is the due date and the baby's name.

There is a huge amount of criticism both online and offline with critics feeling that it is creepy and impersonal, not to mention some of the obvious practicalities. One obvious and unfortunate practicality is if a miscarriage occurs, when the unborn baby has already been announced as a family member online-this would be a terrible experience.

One woman, who before this application was rolled out, has admitted on a baby forum that she had announced her pregnancy on her social network page when she was around six weeks and lived to totally regret it, when she sadly miscarried. She didn't know what to say so she left it a bit vague online and because of her announcement has had to deal with contacts asking her how the baby is doing!

Another obvious practicality is the online presence of these children, which was created by their happy expectant parents-to-be. Later in life, will all of these children be happy to be online in this way? Even these days, when the potential damage of social networks has not necessarily been fully realised, there are people who have no wish to have a social network profile online.

There is also a lot of online discussion about the impersonal nature of making this type of announcement via a profile page on a social network. On this point I can think of one personal example where an old work friend of mine announced his new family member online quite a few months before the birth. All went well with the pregnancy and his baby was born.

In this case I was delighted to see his news as with people who one would lose contact with if we didn't have social networks, then it can be appropriate, given that the couple like the idea and they have thought about the potential repercussions. Yet playing devil's advocate his baby could grow up to hate his online presence, or alternatively be delighted to have got on a social network so early; only time will tell.

From personal experience I can say it was cute, but only as everything went well. However putting up early pregnancy scan photos onto social networks is not something that should be taken lightly. Whether it is cute or creepy is down to a person's personal views, as well as viewpoints about social networks in general.

Before considering going down this route, do think long and hard about the privacy of your unborn baby, they may not thank you for it in the future...or they may think it is cool.