Childbirth via YouTube
Childbirth videos are nothing new. They’ve been screened at pre-natal birthing classes since the 1970s. But they are mostly dated and often highly edited so as not to offend or upset expectant parents.
Now there’s a category of childbirth videos around – real life, unedited, and made friends and families of those in labour. And they can be found in thousands over at You Tube.
A quick google search of ‘YouTube childbirth videos’ turned up 195,000 results.
Seems that more and more women are making these videos in the belief that they will help “demystify” childbirth.
They are watched by expectant parents who want to get ‘all the facts.’
Some even get more than they bargained on.
Back in May, one British father actually ended up delivering his own baby soon after watching some of these videos. Seems that his wife went into pre-mature labour and the midwife was unable to get to her in time. The baby was determined to be born and the only one there to help was the nervous father, armed only with his memory of what he had seen on the video clips.
But as this New York Times article reports, the graphic nature of public childbirth videos makes them controversial, with many people thinking there are a great idea and many others thinking it’s all pretty gross.
So, what do you think?
Childbirth via YouTube – Great or Gross?
(image by Jenny Rollo)
Can’t it be both? Plenty of health and biology related things are super gross, but also cool, and great if you need to have that information.
I don’t sit around watching childbirth videos for fun, but if I were pregnant and wanted to see real-life examples of what it’s like, I could imagine it being incredibly helpful for me to have that option.
So yes, gross, and yes, great.