TheBump.com review: Misconduct/Misleading 3

Concerned about the unfortunate harassment you've described, I decided to take a look at the website thebump.com. I see they have a Google page rank of 6 out of 10, so they're a fairly large website with lots of traffic. The community is free, and with the amount of traffic and sign-ups they receive it would be hard to control the commentators and the content that goes into the forums. I think you'd have a legitimate complaint if you were paying for this service (are you? you didn't disclose, it doesn't seem like you are when I look at the site) but as it is, that's just the nature of the big bad internet machine. Just ignore the negative feedback and try to focus on the positive ones. You can make real friends when you ignore the negative and remain optimistic.

Here's my issue: just found out I was pregnant last month and signed up on the bump.com. At first I absolutely loved it because it showed my pregnancy week by week, the size and developments of the fetus. And I didn't think the forums were that bad at first. I did notice from the very first day that there are cliques and queen bees (the ones who were there the longest). But the only time I started a forum or asked a question was when I had something going on with the medicine my doc had me on. Katinhiding was a nominee for the mod position, and she was the queen bee. Two days ago I went and checked the forums and a girl asked "showing at 8 weeks! Is this normal? I'm a first time mom". And everyone started bullying her right off the bat. They were telling her she was stupid and just fat and bloated and cussing at her for her ignorance. This is her first child, and maybe she is bloated, but she doesn't know what all these things are. And the only ones being rude were the group of friends with katinhiding, including her. I wanted to comment on the poor girls behalf and tell them they need to be a little more supportive, and quit calling her stupid, cause quite frankly she doesn't know if she's having multiples. If she comes back saying she's having triplets, then all the haters were the stupid ones. If you are not part of the "popular" group then you are automatically called out on everything you post. So instead of defending the girl on her board, I sent katinhiding a private message about some of the women bullying, and that it is uncalled for. It is supposed to be a community blog for support while going through the pregnancy, but instead it causes unneeded stress on those they bash all day long. You know what happened next? My account got hacked! And someone...cough cough...katinhiding... Started using my name and my account to post awful things on the forums, calling people b****** and making fun of those having miscarriages, and just trying to give me the worst name. Now I'm completely booted off, and everyone started commenting harassing things. They said they found my Facebook page and was going to blow it up for the world to see what an awful person I was and everything... I checked my Facebook and nothing happened, so they must be harassing some other poor girl. But I got HACKED by someone on the top of the pyramid who is about to become a moderator... The whole point of a moderator is to look at both sides, fix the situation with as little conflict, and never take sides unless something horribly wrong is said. Instead, she did the unthinkable and used my account to CAUSE conflict and make me look horrible, all because I called her out on bullying some poor girl. These women are 20-40 years old, they comment ALL day long, hundreds of times per day, and claim to have other children... Hmmm maybe CPS has the children, because I don't know how someone could be on their phone so much and still be a good parent! You are grown women acting like high school students, and automatically disregard the new girls on the block, and I'm tired of it... Im giving them bad ratings everywhere I can, because I tried to contact the bump.com to tell them I was hacked and what happened to me, and they. Said " awe I'm so sorry, maybe next time try baby center if you want someone to hold your hand". They are not supportive at all, just self righteous pregnant bullies!

The Bump is an absolutely horrendous website for pregnant women to use for advice and/or support. The fact that they call the community a support group is laughable and sad in its own right. These groups consist of women who have nothing better to do with their time but harass users about their questions/concerns. Regardless of what someone might post, there is always at least once response that includes "read the other boards" or "look at the terms before posting this" or "seriously, this again" or "why don't you just ask your doctor." Nine out of ten times, it's the same women posting the same snarky comments and when others call them out on their behavior, the "OG's" rally together to bully even more. The fact that the terms of use strictly prohibit this yet allow it to continue just goes to show that all The Bump cares about is hits to their site and money they're making off of advertising.

If you want a truly helpful pregnancy community, Ovia and Sprout are great.