Developing the ‘sharenting’ habit prenatally has consequences

MY DAUGHTER, now a young teenager, wasn’t responsible for the start of her digital footprint. I created that myself, when I posted her 12-week ultrasound on Facebook.

This decision was unthinking, nudged into being through the ambient pressures of social proof. In the US, for example, over a third of expectant parents were posting sonogram images that year, so my digital environment sent the message that sharing about a child from the first scan was acceptable.

Since then, publishing prenatal identity markers has become yet more normalised and common, including biological sex, “gender reveal” videos, the name of the eventual…