I hate the media
Jun. 4th, 2009 10:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anastasiavSo, I'm home from work this morning (I have to work on Saturday and am trying not to end up with a dozen or more hours of overtime) and I turn on the TV and find this thing called Birth Stories on Discovery Heath. I know its going to be bad, but this was the narration I heard in the first two minutes I watched. (Thank you Tivo for letting me go back and transcribe it.)
"Pushed to her absolute limit after a long and draining natural delivery [woman's name] is now resting comfortably with her new daughter [baby name]. And with the same immense challenge ahead for [woman2's name], [Dr's name] is concerned that she use her energy wisely. Although many mothers plan a natural delivery, its easy to see why so few are able to follow through. Even though she's been in labor for just an hour [emphasis mine: and she's pushing so its clearly a speedy bus labor - its her third baby] [woman2] struggles with the intensity of her pain. [Scene of her pushing and saying "I can't handle it, I can't handle it"]"
I get that these shows want to show the full range of births, fine [I was actually very inspired by a tub birth I saw on a similar show while I was pregnant; it was the thing that convinced me that I could do it too), but it makes me angry when they take pains to narrate a normal birth as something so terrible and fearful.
"Pushed to her absolute limit after a long and draining natural delivery [woman's name] is now resting comfortably with her new daughter [baby name]. And with the same immense challenge ahead for [woman2's name], [Dr's name] is concerned that she use her energy wisely. Although many mothers plan a natural delivery, its easy to see why so few are able to follow through. Even though she's been in labor for just an hour [emphasis mine: and she's pushing so its clearly a speedy bus labor - its her third baby] [woman2] struggles with the intensity of her pain. [Scene of her pushing and saying "I can't handle it, I can't handle it"]"
I get that these shows want to show the full range of births, fine [I was actually very inspired by a tub birth I saw on a similar show while I was pregnant; it was the thing that convinced me that I could do it too), but it makes me angry when they take pains to narrate a normal birth as something so terrible and fearful.
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Date: 2009-06-04 03:06 pm (UTC)And women will become convinced that it's all pain and fear, so of course that is what they will experience themselves, if they are not taught otherwise.