Show Me the Baby
My addiction to pregnancy reality shows.
by Kate Tuttle
December 6, 2007
Most mainstream media won't give us the clear view these shows do. Though TV and movies have come a long way in their depiction of pregnancy and childbirth, from I Love Lucy (the first TV pregnancy) to last summer's Knocked Up, where we saw what looked like an actual newborn, moments after emerging from a stunt vulva, they still can't compare to the real thing. Although National Geographic and other science-oriented groups have at times made forays into the filmed childbirth arena, all of the childbirth shows currently airing are produced by the Discovery network, a global cable empire comprising TLC, the Discovery Health Channel, Discovery Channel, Animal Planet and the Travel Channel. All are repeated dozens of times throughout the week, often at times particularly well-suited to the hugely pregnant or newly postpartum — hey, they seem to figure, if you're up at 3:30 in the morning, chances are it's baby-related.
Which is why I spent a fair amount of my recent pregnancy sitting on the couch while shouting "Push! Push!" at the television set.
Why do so many of us love these shows (and many of us must, because they're proliferating madly)? First, they fit nicely into the trend of medical reality programming, a popularity that goes straight back to carnival freak shows. Second, they offer a counterintuitive form of escapism — someone's giving birth, but it's not me! — which allows viewers to step back and appreciate all the beauty inherent in labor and delivery, beauty 
Babies: Special Delivery is an hour long and follows as many as six mothers giving birth, sometimes to babies with terrible problems — some of whom actually die, so you really can't watch it while pregnant.
Baby, Baby focuses on multiple births, nearly always in England. Bridget Jones fans will warm toward adorably harried British mums wrangling little Angus and Alastair and the like, but the show is frustratingly (or charmingly, depending on your viewpoint) vague when it comes to medical details.
My favorite, House of Babies, is set at a Miami midwifery center where water births and multicultural couples abound. It's the Blue State alternative to A Baby Story, and arguably the most ethnically diverse program on television. Where else can you see a Pakistani woman and her Haitian husband give birth with the help of a Jewish midwife and her Cuban assistant? — Kate Tuttle
that's easy to miss when you're out of your mind with pain and fear.
Then too, they provide a great opportunity for new parents to play Monday-morning quarterback, using all the knowledge gained from months of cramming for childbirth. Your newly acquired familiarity with the anatomy of the cervix and the types of breech presentation needn't go to waste, not when you can supervise, from the comfort of your home, as other women labor. "Shouldn't she be walking around now, to bring the baby down?" you might think, and, "Somebody neglected their perineal massage!" or, "who the hell names their baby McKenna?"
Somehow, though, all of them have the same effect on me. In the end, after all the judging, there's something universally humbling about watching someone give birth. No matter how little I have in common with a woman in terms of taste, or social class, or so-called sophistication, I know how she feels when she closes her eyes in blessed relief that the baby is, at long last, out. And no matter how NASCAR I find her husband, I can be moved to tears when I witness his stunned silence upon hearing his baby's first cry. That's the real magic: not the birth itself but the alchemy it works on each specific family — the split-second emotional recalibration as families welcome one more beloved member. Forget about perineal massage; the most flexible part of the human body is its heart.
©2007 Kate Tuttle and Nerve Media
About the Author
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Kate Tuttle is a writer and editor raising two children just outside Boston. |
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