People of all ages and professions come to my Supported Birth classes having been exposed to nothing in their lives about birth but Hollywood images. This is so non-beneficial and destructive. We usually don’t realize how much the media effects our minds and beliefs, in this case, causing completely unrealistic fears from exaggerated images.
Our decisions don’t happen in a vacuum. Culture, mass media, people art, theater, science, opinions, all shape us, and if we don’t examine the shaping we will be drastically influenced. Your values, dreams and desires should come from YOU. And the day of your baby’s birth, all the more so.
Think about shows and films like Friends, Nine Months, Mad About You, Roseanne, Waitress, Juno, E.R., I Love Lucy, The Simpsons, Baywatch, She’s Having a Baby, Knocked Up, Everybody Loves Raymond. In these shows typically labor starts with the water breaking and then the woman immediately must go to the hospital. She is often in excruciating pain from the first contraction, shouting at others to get her to the hospital. She is typically white, married, slim, heterosexual, around 30 years old and able-bodied. The depictions of their labors and births convey fear, danger, pain and speed.
Once at the hospital we see her lying down in bed, being told what to do, panting and yelling. Often these shows glorify the epidural as she screams: “Give me all the drugs!” and “Knock me out!”
Why? Hollywood goes with what sells. Hollywood wants profit. Hysteria and emergency are dramatic (or made to be funny). Sometimes the baby is an alien (Star Trek, Coneheads, Rosemary’s Baby). We may realize these depictions to be exaggerated but nonetheless when there is no exposure to normal birth, this is what nestles into the unconscious of girls and childbearing women.
Hollywood depicts the husband as idiotic, chaotic, and the recipient of her pain-crazed attack. She may bite him, break his fingers, punch or kick him. He is the brunt of the woman’s rage and violence, having “done this to her” or else he faints and is useless.
Then there are the reality shows like Special Delivery, Birth Stories, Celebrity Moms. In 2009 2/3 of women watched these shows while only ¼ of women went to childbirth preparation classes. These shows normalize medical intervention; the tabloids focus on fashion, beauty, the immediately restored postpartum body, and completely unrealistic views of postpartum and early motherhood (while behind the scenes are nannies, chefs, drivers, private coaches OR hidden postpartum depressions and breakdowns). In the show Friends, babies are left alone in an apartment or always sitting quietly in the crib, while mom’s life changes imperceptibly. These depictions are making new moms feel inadequate and ashamed of not handling things better enough to be well-groomed, with clean white furniture.
On the other hand, Natural birth in mass media is shown as an exotic, extreme, “far-out there” thing. Birthing with dolphins, hippies, orgasmic birth in a hot tub, giving birth in a tree or during an Amazon flood, are the alternatives to the insane but “safe” hospital. So you have the choice of a disastrous c-section or giving birth in a freezing Russian river. And Elson’s film was made before the flood of social media on the internet!
In contrast, birth classes educate in a different way. The agenda is to give women and couples the opportunity to see positive and realistic labor and delivery. Women narrate their feelings, especially about natural birth, acknowledging pain but including joy and empowerment. We view non-directed pushing, perhaps with a bit of help to avoid tearing at the delivery by NOT pushing forcefully. The room is private and calm. The woman has a say. The baby is given directly to her, as she cries with relief and happiness. Partners are involved and caring. Labor takes time and requires patience and a value for the sanctity of life and the bringing forth of life.
It is so important that women and couples take Childbirth Education classes to counter all of the negative images that they have absorbed throughout life through the mass media and world of entertainment. It is an un-learning and re-learning process, to get to a place of confidence and power. You can do it!
(sweet afternote: At the end of Vicki’s film, the narrator tells us “In the time you have taken to watch this film, 15,000 babies have been born)