Hilary Duff wanted her son to be there when she gave birth.
The ‘Younger’ star felt it was important that her nine-year-old son Luca was there when she welcomed her youngest child into the world so he could see how “strong” women are and what childbirth’s like.
She said: “It was kind of important for me [for him to be there] because I’m really big on being open and honest with him about how strong women are and what childbirth looks like. He knows all about periods and it’s important for me to normalise that conversation with him for all the women that are going to be in his life. He wanted to be there for it, but it happened so fast he missed it.”
And Hilary – who also has Banks, two, and Mae, three weeks, with her husband Matthew Koma – thinks it is important to have these conversations with her son about equality and strength.
Speaking on the Informed Pregnancy podcast, she added: “I think that sometimes a nine-year-old boy is like, ‘Well, men have bigger muscles,’ and, like, yeah, but we bring life into this world. We move a baby through our body. There is a big topic of conversation in the house right now: equality, and strength coming from different places besides your muscles or whatever.”
Meanwhile, Hilary previously admitted breastfeeding is “really hard”.
The 33-year-old actress said: “I’d say it was the easiest with Luca. All of the babies latch really great, I’m just not a huge milk-producer, so it’s emotional for me. In fact, this is the first baby that I haven’t supplemented with yet, so I’ve just exclusively been breastfeeding her. I’m going to keep trying that for a couple of weeks. Just still painful and it’s hard, and it’s even harder having the other two that I know need me so much, and this takes up such a huge portion of the day. It seems like every 20 minutes I’m feeding the baby, and I have to be sitting in one place, and Banks is still not quite old enough to understand, even though she has been amazing with the baby. It’s just hard.”