August 22, 2025 • 23 mins
Media portrayals of childbirth shape our cultural beliefs and personal expectations, often presenting inaccurate, dramatic versions that instill fear rather than confidence. Our perceptions about birth are influenced by family, education, and especially the entertainment industry which frequently misrepresents what labor and delivery truly entail.
• Common birth myths in media include the dramatic water-breaking scene, screaming women who've lost control, useless panicked partners, and unrealistically fast labors
• Movies and TV shows compress birth into minutes when real labor typically takes hours or days
• Media often portrays birthing people as passive participants rather than powerful, central figures in their own experience
• Childbirth scenes in media typically feature only white women in hospital settings, missing the diversity of real birth experiences
• Social media offers more authentic birth content but can still present misleading or aesthetically-edited versions
• Mainstream portrayals in recent shows and films like "Pieces of a Woman" and "Grey's Anatomy" continue to emphasize drama and tragedy
• Being intentional about the birth media you consume can help you develop more realistic expectations
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Show Credits
Host: Angie Rosier
Music: Michael Hicks
Photographer: Toni Walker
Episode Artwork: Nick Greenwood
Producer: Gillian Rosier Frampton
Voiceover: Ryan Parker
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Welcome to the Ordinary Doula Podcast with
Angie Rozier, hosted by BirthLearning, where we help prepare
folks for labor and birth withexpertise coming from 20 years
of experience in a busy doulapractice Helping thousands of
people prepare for labor,providing essential knowledge
(00:41):
and tools for positive andempowering birth experiences.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Hello, this is Angie and this is the Ordinary Doula
Podcast.
On this podcast, we like totake practical information,
share it with awesome peoplelike yourself.
I've been a doula for over 20years.
I supported thousands of peoplein childbirth, even more in
prenatal preparation, and alsosupport people in postpartum and
lactation so kind of a wholepackage and love what I do,
(01:12):
absolutely love being able tohelp individuals and families at
this time in their life.
So today I want to talk a littlebit about the portrayal of
birth in media and how thatimpacts how we feel about birth
and kind of our general sense orculture surrounding birth.
We've talked about this onother episodes, but I want to
dive specifically into mediathis time.
(01:34):
So, if you, I want you to thinkfirst of all what it is you
think about birth like, justright off the bat, childbirth.
What sentiments come to mind,what images come to mind, kind
of what's the feeling that youhave in your mind, body and
heart when you think aboutchildbirth and then think about
where it came from.
Childbirth is not part of Imean, we were all born, of
(01:56):
course, so it is part of ourlives that way, but it's not
part of our day to day life inour culture.
Unless you have a job where itis right If you're a labor
delivery nurse or you're amidwife or a doctor that deals
with that on a day-to-day basis,it becomes very commonplace and
ordinary for you.
But for most people childbirthis like way out there, right.
They're not seeing it,addressing it, hearing it,
(02:17):
feeling it every day.
And then maybe they're in asituation where they are
pregnant or have a pregnantfriend or partner and they're
like, oh wow, here's this thingcalled pregnancy and childbirth
and it has to be addressed,right, people?
You know, like a pregnancylasts for a while, it's an
experience, it's a longexperience, and then of course
the labor and birth is a bigexperience.
So it's kind of an acuteexperience in our life.
(02:40):
For most folks it's not alifetime experience.
Some cultures, birth is muchmore woven into their day to day
, in their culture.
They see it, they talk about itdifferent times in our history
it has had different places inthe day to day life.
But at this point we can kindof put it in a box, kind of
compartmentalizing, keep it overthere, and sometimes we go over
there and we open up that box,but most people kind of keep
(03:02):
that box over there.
So kind of consider where yoursentiments, your own personal
culture comes about.
Birth, your family willinfluence that.
Media influence that.
Where you live influences that.
Your access to healthcare,medical care, education is going
to influence that as well.
But media definitely media isgoing to influence that.
(03:22):
So TV shows, movies, socialmedia, pop culture all of this
influences our cultural, ourmass cultural beliefs about
birth and our expectationsaround it.
So a lot of times from the mediaand you got to remember, right,
they're selling something, theygot to make it exciting and
entertaining and so oftentimesit reinforces fear or drama or
(03:44):
medicalization around childbirth.
Um.
So movies, like in movies andtelevision, what you often see,
what's often portrayed, is whatchildbirth looks like.
It sounds like it's a womanscreaming, right, like she's
frantic, um, she's out ofcontrol.
Um, a lot of times we have thewater breaking, the bag of water
(04:07):
breaks, which you know, that'sthe amniotic sac releasing and
it's in a grocery store and it'sfrantic.
There's a frantic drive to thehospital, there's maybe
emergency personnel involved andthe baby's born in like three
minutes, right.
So it's high drama, right.
Born in like three minutes,right.
So it's high drama, right.
But media, it's interesting.
It doesn't just entertain us,it also teaches us.
(04:29):
Whether it needs, it intends toor not.
Even if it's inaccurate orincorrect, the media is teaching
us things.
And so if this is the onlyplace you've gotten your quote,
unquote education aboutchildbirth maybe a health class
in high school as well for onechapter, you're going to have
some kind of misconceptionsabout what childbirth really is
(04:50):
okay.
So this, as we're talking aboutthis, we're just kind of
exploring and examining patternsin our pop culture we're not
shaming individuals orindustries by any means and how
they view birth or portray birth.
We're just kind of taking anexploratory look at our cultural
, our community cultural beliefsabout birth.
So some common media.
(05:13):
You know that we see some kindof themes about childbirth.
Is the water breaking emergency, right?
That it's sudden, it's dramatic, it's usually in a public place
and that labor is going tobegin immediately.
You're going to be into thethroes of labor seconds after
the water breaks.
Now, that is not how it happensfor most people.
For some yes, I have had someclients their water breaks and
(05:35):
the baby comes very soon after.
It's usually never ever a firstbaby.
It might be second, third orfourth babies.
That come quickly after thewater breaks, and that's good to
know, you know, be prepared forthat.
But generally speaking thewater breaks and nothing happens
.
We just kind of hang out for awhile, right.
Another thing that we seehappening a lot is a screaming
(05:58):
woman, this out of control,panicked woman screaming.
A lot of times she's tellingher partner like did this to me?
Like she's having massiveregrets, um, she's hating the
moment.
She's obviously in distress.
Um, she's pushing blame ontosomeone.
Um, she's kind of lost her headand she's always on her back,
(06:18):
usually, um, her legs are up instirrups.
She's draped, of course it'stelevision, so they're gonna
yourups.
She's draped, of course it'stelevision, so they're going to,
you know, have a pretty welldraped and covered.
Um, there's generally a maledoctor who's coaching her or
yelling at her, calming her down.
So that's a common, you know,portrayal of birth in the media
as well.
Inaccurate, I can say.
(06:39):
I have, I've heard, I haveheard screaming, screaming like
once, like my ears hurt, youknow, but I've never, ever seen
a woman say you did this to meand be out of control, panicked
and yelling like that, neverseen that Another common
portrayal is a useless orpanicked partner, right.
(07:02):
So this partner, who's kind ofmaybe for comic relief but just
not a source of support, is kindof roaming about the room, not
helpful, and that is fun, likethat's a.
You know, we have the courtjester role that needs to be
played by someone, but alsothat's not super accurate.
A lot of times the partners arevery invested, very involved.
They may feel panicked on theinside, but they usually are not
(07:26):
useless or running around withnothing to do.
They're really pretty focusedand focused on support.
Another thing we see a lot oftimes is the birth is fast,
right, like the baby's born infive minutes.
The labor is a sudden event.
It's not a long process and Ithink that miscommunication
right there surprises people andprovides them the most
challenges.
When I work with people andwhen they hear how long labor is
(07:49):
, like some people will justwant it to end just because of
time, for no other reason thatit's been too much time and they
aren't aware that birth cantake time.
And think about movies.
Movies, you know, are a coupleof hours and the birth scene in
a movie is far shorter than that.
Right, sitcoms, when birth isportrayed in our sitcoms, a
(08:10):
sitcom's what?
20, 30 minutes Birth is notright.
They have to fit an entirebirth event and the labor
process into a sitcom.
So of course, it's going to becondensed.
It'll be much more condensedand much shorter, but that trips
people up.
They're like why is this takingso long?
Especially, people wantinductions.
They think, oh, awesome, I'mgoing to get an induction, have
a baby by this afternoon.
I'm like or tomorrow or thenext day, you know there's, I
(08:34):
think, people are not aware oftruly the time it takes to go
into labor and to go through theprocess and have a baby.
So that fast birth probably notgoing to happen.
Yes, it happens, but not often.
Another very common theme iscrisis and chaos.
Right, very rarely do we see inthe media a calm, physiologic
(08:55):
birth where that mom is incontrol, where she's perfectly
supported by the team around her, where she's in charge.
She, while she might be thecentral figure in a lot of media
portrayal especially when we'retalking about, like um,
scripted media portrayal right,so she might be the central
figure, but she's not often thepower figure.
(09:17):
There's another power figureshe's not.
It's not, it's not centeredaround her, she's not the in
charge of her own event, whereasa lot of times In birth the mom
is the central figure,especially in just normal
physiologic birth, right?
So a normal, calm, physiologicbirth, which I love to see we
don't get it every time for sure, because there are a lot of
(09:39):
interventions depending on wherewe're giving birth A birth
that's well supported and hasamazing, compassionate,
competent providers with a greatsupportive partner.
We don't see that in the mediavery often that touches on some
emotions Like, oh, see that inthe media.
Very often that touches on someemotions Like, oh, that's sweet
, that was tender, that wasawesome.
Like we want those emotions butthey're not sensational, so a
(09:59):
lot of times they're not goingto be used.
So think of the shows, movies,shows.
Some of them are getting to bepretty old now, some of them are
much newer, like Friends,grey's Anatomy, Knocked Up, call
the Midwife.
These are some places wherebirth and we'll talk in a minute
about some more contemporaryones as well where birth has
(10:19):
been portrayed, and I love thislittle piece of history going
back in time.
Gosh, probably 75 years now, ornearly so.
The first time that a pregnantwoman was shown on television
was in the 1950s.
It was very much againstcultural norms to show pregnancy
or even allude to it ontelevision, and lucille ball was
(10:40):
doing I love lucy, she had twobabies while she was doing that
show and wanted to continuedoing the show and the network
said nope, we can't have that.
She insisted, she said no, I'mgoing to keep doing the show.
Um, and seen pregnant ontelevision.
So that was the first time.
Like she kind of broke somesocial norms there.
But the concession was theywere not allowed to use the word
(11:02):
pregnant.
It was worse than a lot ofthings I guess you could do or
say on television was to referto pregnancy.
So I think the word they usedwas expecting.
So that was groundbreaking atthe time, right, and if you know
the episode when she was havingthe baby, her husband, ricky
Ricardo, is in the waiting room.
He was doing a show that night,so he's all kinds of dressed up
(11:24):
.
He's fallen into that theme ofa useless, panicked partner and
that was at a time when partnersweren't in the room, right, so
accurate to the time of howchildbirth was then.
So that started it.
And then that brings us towhere we are today with the kind
of unrealistic, quiteunrealistic themes that we see.
So media is often the first andthe most repeated exposure
(11:46):
people get to labor and birthbefore they actually experience
it personally.
So that can oftentimes what'sportrayed can kind of get us
prepared for urgency and fearand dependence on intervention.
It really over-medicalizes alot of birth, while there is a
ton of medical intervention inmany birth experiences.
(12:08):
This teaches us that that's theabsolute norm.
It kind of positions thebirthing person as passive,
right.
Something's happening to them.
They're not active, they're nottaking an active role in their
experience.
And it also kind of skews whowe see giving birth.
Right, think about who you seegiving birth.
Often it's a white woman.
(12:28):
It's going to be a white womangiving birth in a hospital
setting.
That's going to be a whitewoman giving birth in a hospital
setting.
That's as I think about themedia portrayals of birth I've
seen.
I can't think of anything otherthan that.
Maybe, maybe you have I reallydon't watch a lot of media in my
life but generally it's goingto be just a white woman giving
birth in a hospital.
(12:48):
That's also not super accurate,right?
There's lots of different birthsettings and a whole lot more
people than white women givebirth for sure.
And those culture influencescome into that too, which can be
a beautiful thing.
I love how other cultures tobring in their pieces around
childbirth as well.
So all of these perspectiveinfluence expectations, right.
(13:12):
They influence our anxietylevels around childbirth.
They influence our trust or ourlack of trust in the female
body and how it gives birth, andor it influences our trust or
lack of trust in the medicalsystems that surround that.
This influences how partnersshould quote, unquote, should or
often show up, right, they'rekind of set to the side, so it
(13:37):
can influence how partners areinvolved.
It can influence how cliniciansare viewed like oh you know,
they absolutely know everything.
They're the central figure inthis.
This can influence our birthplans and what we know or think
is possible about childbirth.
So we also have, of course, thephenomenon of social media and
there are a lot of examples ofbirth and this gets more real,
(14:01):
right, it's not as as scriptedthat you can find.
I remember health class yearsago used to be the only place
you could, or a childbirtheducation class was the only
place you could actually watch achildbirth um in video form,
and now you could look up onyoutube tiktok, like you can see
1 000 birth videos if youwanted to.
They are out there and so thatwe do have access to a lot of
(14:24):
and it's real, it's raw, thoseare like, oftentimes, real birth
experiences, right, so we havepeople out there that offer it's
more visible now, right, inreal senses.
It includes a lot of diversity,and you might see way more
empowerment in social media'sportrayals of childbirth than
anything else.
There's some really positivebirth content out there, talking
(14:48):
about VBACs or midwives orbirth centers or water birth or
physiologic birth, right, orsupported hospital birth or
whatever that might be Some ofthese.
However, we do have this aswell.
While we can edit all kinds ofthings they might have, they
might kind of give us the effectof having a perfect birth or an
aesthetically beautiful birth,right, um, some influencers are
(15:12):
going to show us exactly youknow what what they script their
birth to be.
Um, but birth can be messy,like it really can be pretty
messy, and, and some of ourvideos definitely show that um
it, it might show graphiccontent without context, right,
and so you don't see the wholepicture, know, the whole picture
.
That can feel kind ofoverwhelming and, and so
(15:33):
sometimes you know, we got someunregulated misinformation there
and information that can kindof spread and have an impact as
well.
So let's talk about what wewant to see, what we need to see
, what will be important to seeas we change the narrative, the
cultural narrative on masslevels about childbirth.
I love it when birth can beportrayed as normal, as powerful
(15:56):
and varied, like we're notgoing to.
Birth shouldn't look any oneway.
It can look a lot of differentways.
I love it when birth isportrayed that there's diverse
families, there's diversesettings.
We have home birth, birthcenters, hospitals.
Some people do free birth, alsorecognizing, realizing that
(16:17):
outcomes are different.
Sometimes a NICU stay isinvolved, sometimes an ambulance
ride is involved.
Those are realities.
They're not always the norm,thank goodness.
Knowing that different bodiesgive birth it's not just always
a gorgeous actress who's a whitewoman giving birth, but lots of
different types of bodies givebirth.
Um, bringing consent into thatSome of the portrayals in the
(16:42):
media there's no consent, right,this woman's out of her mind,
screaming and people are doingthings to her.
But knowing that consent is animportant part of it.
Autonomy is Informed, choicesare important.
Knowing that women areoftentimes in childbirth very
calm and collected, very strong.
They're very, very infrequentlyis there actually panic or
(17:02):
chaos.
Birth is usually prettybeautiful and chill right, like
yes, it's difficult, butnobody's running around the room
going crazy like we often seein the media.
While that's entertaining, itmight not be realistic.
So I all the time when I workwith clients as they're
preparing for birth, a lot ofthem say I had to get off Google
(17:24):
, I had to get off Instagram, Ihad to get off TikTok, because
even what they're finding theremight not be helpful to them,
right?
So be really intentional aboutthe kind of media that you
consume.
That's going to impact yourculture and your feelings about
childbirth.
Hopefully it's for the positive.
Look for what you want, and alot of people are gravitated to
what they want.
Sometimes your consumption ofsocial media around childbirth
(17:47):
will change how you want to dothings right.
They can persuade you to dothings a different way.
And then debrief with someonewho really works in that and
knows what's real and what's notreal.
I think it's fascinatingwatching any kind of childbirth
portrayed in videos or in mediaof some kind, especially when
it's scripted right and we haveactors doing it.
When it's not real people andreal birth, there's some
(18:10):
inaccuracies, for sure.
When things are absolutely notpossible, that might be
portrayed, but get into the realstories right.
Talk to people about their realstories and a lot of times
people focus on trauma.
So don't just focus on thetrauma, but pull out the
positive of other people's birthstories, whether it's someone
you're having a realconversation with or somebody
you are watching on social media.
(18:31):
So use social media responsiblyas you prepare for childbirth.
So again, go back to where yourfirst impressions of childbirth,
labor and delivery came from.
Your first impressions ofchildbirth, labor and delivery
came from.
Where are they built?
By media?
How accurate is that?
Are they built by your family,your community, culture, the
(18:54):
education you've been exposed toor not been exposed to, and go
out and kind of do some diggingand some exploring.
Sometimes you might need tounlearn some things, and that's
okay.
Sometimes you learn some newthings.
As I teach childbirth classes,either privately or in the
hospital, I love seeing thelights go on in people's head
Like wow, really I didn't knowthat, I didn't know that was
(19:16):
possible, or you can ask forthat or how that worked and I
love just seeing a curiouslearner you know whether that's
moms, dads, whoever's supportingthe birthing person.
It's awesome to see thoselights go on, because birth can
and should be positive,empowering and impactful in
people's lives, in all the livesthat are involved with that.
(19:37):
So take a good look at whereyour views come from and maybe
do some unlearning of what mediahas taught us.
So a couple interesting thingsnow, as we look at current.
You know some much more recentportrayals Pieces of a Woman was
in 2020.
Maybe you have watched that,but that's a home birth gone
(19:58):
tragically wrong, so that doessome teaching about home birth.
There's a pretty visceralperformance on there House of
the Dragon, if you've seen that.
From 2022, there's a verygraphic medieval c-section where
both the mom and the baby die,so that does some teaching to us
.
There's a TV series Dead Ringers2023, talks about a doctor, two
(20:24):
doctors who perform naturalbirths and c-sections, and
they're often way moreintentionally actually more
bloody and anatomically raw thanreal birth is right.
So birth generally isn't verybloody at all.
Grey's Anatomy you know theseason finale.
That one's a pretty popular one, but it's a very dramatic birth
scene during a blackout and astorm.
(20:45):
So very high emotion, highdrama and birth can be high
emotion, for sure, but this ismeant for entertainment, um.
So other ones 2022 we have thisis going to hurt.
Um, it kind of shows, you know,that that birth is messy,
chaotic, um, so, yeah, that kindof think of even star wars.
(21:06):
You know we have in star wars,um, where padme gives birth to
twins and she dies.
You know she has a tragic death, death after that and an
interesting one.
That's been pretty iconic andit's a much older one, is alien,
from 1979.
That's not even a humanchildbirth but, um, it's a
pretty visceral birth scene andone of the most iconic birth
(21:28):
scenes in media.
So these like it's culturalstorytelling, right, it's, it's
playing on fear and fascination.
But kind of go back to some real, look at some real births and
see what birth is like as youplan for, prepare and shift your
culture around birth, labor,birth and delivery, because our
(21:54):
society has a ways to go inmaking that a positive
experience for any and all of us.
Hopefully this has been helpfuland you can kind of explore
where your culture comes fromabout childbirth and hopefully
you can move forward and make animpact in your life for others.
That to make it more positive.
It's an awesome part of ourculture.
We all do it At some point.
We're all involved inchildbirth.
Thanks for being with me heretoday on the Ordinary Doula
(22:16):
podcast.
This is Angie Rozier, glad tospend this little bit of time
with you and, as always, reachout to someone who's been
meaningful in your life, letthem know it, thank them and
make that human connection today.
See you next time.
Have a great day wherever youare, whatever you're doing.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
I hope it's a good one.
Thank you for listening to theOrdinary Doula podcast with
Angie Rozier, hosted by BirthLearning.
(22:54):
Episode credits will be in theshow notes Tune in next time as
we continue to explore the manyaspects of giving birth.
Welcome to the Ordinary Doula Podcast with
Angie Rozier, hosted by BirthLearning, where we help prepare
folks for labor and birth withexpertise coming from 20 years
of experience in a busy doulapractice Helping thousands of
people prepare for labor,providing essential knowledge
(00:41):
and tools for positive andempowering birth experiences.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Hello, this is Angie and this is the Ordinary Doula
Podcast.
On this podcast, we like totake practical information,
share it with awesome peoplelike yourself.
I've been a doula for over 20years.
I supported thousands of peoplein childbirth, even more in
prenatal preparation, and alsosupport people in postpartum and
lactation so kind of a wholepackage and love what I do,
(01:12):
absolutely love being able tohelp individuals and families at
this time in their life.
So today I want to talk a littlebit about the portrayal of
birth in media and how thatimpacts how we feel about birth
and kind of our general sense orculture surrounding birth.
We've talked about this onother episodes, but I want to
dive specifically into mediathis time.
(01:34):
So, if you, I want you to thinkfirst of all what it is you
think about birth like, justright off the bat, childbirth.
What sentiments come to mind,what images come to mind, kind
of what's the feeling that youhave in your mind, body and
heart when you think aboutchildbirth and then think about
where it came from.
Childbirth is not part of Imean, we were all born, of
(01:56):
course, so it is part of ourlives that way, but it's not
part of our day to day life inour culture.
Unless you have a job where itis right If you're a labor
delivery nurse or you're amidwife or a doctor that deals
with that on a day-to-day basis,it becomes very commonplace and
ordinary for you.
But for most people childbirthis like way out there, right.
They're not seeing it,addressing it, hearing it,
(02:17):
feeling it every day.
And then maybe they're in asituation where they are
pregnant or have a pregnantfriend or partner and they're
like, oh wow, here's this thingcalled pregnancy and childbirth
and it has to be addressed,right, people?
You know, like a pregnancylasts for a while, it's an
experience, it's a longexperience, and then of course
the labor and birth is a bigexperience.
So it's kind of an acuteexperience in our life.
(02:40):
For most folks it's not alifetime experience.
Some cultures, birth is muchmore woven into their day to day
, in their culture.
They see it, they talk about itdifferent times in our history
it has had different places inthe day to day life.
But at this point we can kindof put it in a box, kind of
compartmentalizing, keep it overthere, and sometimes we go over
there and we open up that box,but most people kind of keep
(03:02):
that box over there.
So kind of consider where yoursentiments, your own personal
culture comes about.
Birth, your family willinfluence that.
Media influence that.
Where you live influences that.
Your access to healthcare,medical care, education is going
to influence that as well.
But media definitely media isgoing to influence that.
(03:22):
So TV shows, movies, socialmedia, pop culture all of this
influences our cultural, ourmass cultural beliefs about
birth and our expectationsaround it.
So a lot of times from the mediaand you got to remember, right,
they're selling something, theygot to make it exciting and
entertaining and so oftentimesit reinforces fear or drama or
(03:44):
medicalization around childbirth.
Um.
So movies, like in movies andtelevision, what you often see,
what's often portrayed, is whatchildbirth looks like.
It sounds like it's a womanscreaming, right, like she's
frantic, um, she's out ofcontrol.
Um, a lot of times we have thewater breaking, the bag of water
(04:07):
breaks, which you know, that'sthe amniotic sac releasing and
it's in a grocery store and it'sfrantic.
There's a frantic drive to thehospital, there's maybe
emergency personnel involved andthe baby's born in like three
minutes, right.
So it's high drama, right.
Born in like three minutes,right.
So it's high drama, right.
But media, it's interesting.
It doesn't just entertain us,it also teaches us.
(04:29):
Whether it needs, it intends toor not.
Even if it's inaccurate orincorrect, the media is teaching
us things.
And so if this is the onlyplace you've gotten your quote,
unquote education aboutchildbirth maybe a health class
in high school as well for onechapter, you're going to have
some kind of misconceptionsabout what childbirth really is
(04:50):
okay.
So this, as we're talking aboutthis, we're just kind of
exploring and examining patternsin our pop culture we're not
shaming individuals orindustries by any means and how
they view birth or portray birth.
We're just kind of taking anexploratory look at our cultural
, our community cultural beliefsabout birth.
So some common media.
(05:13):
You know that we see some kindof themes about childbirth.
Is the water breaking emergency, right?
That it's sudden, it's dramatic, it's usually in a public place
and that labor is going tobegin immediately.
You're going to be into thethroes of labor seconds after
the water breaks.
Now, that is not how it happensfor most people.
For some yes, I have had someclients their water breaks and
(05:35):
the baby comes very soon after.
It's usually never ever a firstbaby.
It might be second, third orfourth babies.
That come quickly after thewater breaks, and that's good to
know, you know, be prepared forthat.
But generally speaking thewater breaks and nothing happens
.
We just kind of hang out for awhile, right.
Another thing that we seehappening a lot is a screaming
(05:58):
woman, this out of control,panicked woman screaming.
A lot of times she's tellingher partner like did this to me?
Like she's having massiveregrets, um, she's hating the
moment.
She's obviously in distress.
Um, she's pushing blame ontosomeone.
Um, she's kind of lost her headand she's always on her back,
(06:18):
usually, um, her legs are up instirrups.
She's draped, of course it'stelevision, so they're gonna
yourups.
She's draped, of course it'stelevision, so they're going to,
you know, have a pretty welldraped and covered.
Um, there's generally a maledoctor who's coaching her or
yelling at her, calming her down.
So that's a common, you know,portrayal of birth in the media
as well.
Inaccurate, I can say.
(06:39):
I have, I've heard, I haveheard screaming, screaming like
once, like my ears hurt, youknow, but I've never, ever seen
a woman say you did this to meand be out of control, panicked
and yelling like that, neverseen that Another common
portrayal is a useless orpanicked partner, right.
(07:02):
So this partner, who's kind ofmaybe for comic relief but just
not a source of support, is kindof roaming about the room, not
helpful, and that is fun, likethat's a.
You know, we have the courtjester role that needs to be
played by someone, but alsothat's not super accurate.
A lot of times the partners arevery invested, very involved.
They may feel panicked on theinside, but they usually are not
(07:26):
useless or running around withnothing to do.
They're really pretty focusedand focused on support.
Another thing we see a lot oftimes is the birth is fast,
right, like the baby's born infive minutes.
The labor is a sudden event.
It's not a long process and Ithink that miscommunication
right there surprises people andprovides them the most
challenges.
When I work with people andwhen they hear how long labor is
(07:49):
, like some people will justwant it to end just because of
time, for no other reason thatit's been too much time and they
aren't aware that birth cantake time.
And think about movies.
Movies, you know, are a coupleof hours and the birth scene in
a movie is far shorter than that.
Right, sitcoms, when birth isportrayed in our sitcoms, a
(08:10):
sitcom's what?
20, 30 minutes Birth is notright.
They have to fit an entirebirth event and the labor
process into a sitcom.
So of course, it's going to becondensed.
It'll be much more condensedand much shorter, but that trips
people up.
They're like why is this takingso long?
Especially, people wantinductions.
They think, oh, awesome, I'mgoing to get an induction, have
a baby by this afternoon.
I'm like or tomorrow or thenext day, you know there's, I
(08:34):
think, people are not aware oftruly the time it takes to go
into labor and to go through theprocess and have a baby.
So that fast birth probably notgoing to happen.
Yes, it happens, but not often.
Another very common theme iscrisis and chaos.
Right, very rarely do we see inthe media a calm, physiologic
(08:55):
birth where that mom is incontrol, where she's perfectly
supported by the team around her, where she's in charge.
She, while she might be thecentral figure in a lot of media
portrayal especially when we'retalking about, like um,
scripted media portrayal right,so she might be the central
figure, but she's not often thepower figure.
(09:17):
There's another power figureshe's not.
It's not, it's not centeredaround her, she's not the in
charge of her own event, whereasa lot of times In birth the mom
is the central figure,especially in just normal
physiologic birth, right?
So a normal, calm, physiologicbirth, which I love to see we
don't get it every time for sure, because there are a lot of
(09:39):
interventions depending on wherewe're giving birth A birth
that's well supported and hasamazing, compassionate,
competent providers with a greatsupportive partner.
We don't see that in the mediavery often that touches on some
emotions Like, oh, see that inthe media.
Very often that touches on someemotions Like, oh, that's sweet
, that was tender, that wasawesome.
Like we want those emotions butthey're not sensational, so a
(09:59):
lot of times they're not goingto be used.
So think of the shows, movies,shows.
Some of them are getting to bepretty old now, some of them are
much newer, like Friends,grey's Anatomy, Knocked Up, call
the Midwife.
These are some places wherebirth and we'll talk in a minute
about some more contemporaryones as well where birth has
(10:19):
been portrayed, and I love thislittle piece of history going
back in time.
Gosh, probably 75 years now, ornearly so.
The first time that a pregnantwoman was shown on television
was in the 1950s.
It was very much againstcultural norms to show pregnancy
or even allude to it ontelevision, and lucille ball was
(10:40):
doing I love lucy, she had twobabies while she was doing that
show and wanted to continuedoing the show and the network
said nope, we can't have that.
She insisted, she said no, I'mgoing to keep doing the show.
Um, and seen pregnant ontelevision.
So that was the first time.
Like she kind of broke somesocial norms there.
But the concession was theywere not allowed to use the word
(11:02):
pregnant.
It was worse than a lot ofthings I guess you could do or
say on television was to referto pregnancy.
So I think the word they usedwas expecting.
So that was groundbreaking atthe time, right, and if you know
the episode when she was havingthe baby, her husband, ricky
Ricardo, is in the waiting room.
He was doing a show that night,so he's all kinds of dressed up
(11:24):
.
He's fallen into that theme ofa useless, panicked partner and
that was at a time when partnersweren't in the room, right, so
accurate to the time of howchildbirth was then.
So that started it.
And then that brings us towhere we are today with the kind
of unrealistic, quiteunrealistic themes that we see.
So media is often the first andthe most repeated exposure
(11:46):
people get to labor and birthbefore they actually experience
it personally.
So that can oftentimes what'sportrayed can kind of get us
prepared for urgency and fearand dependence on intervention.
It really over-medicalizes alot of birth, while there is a
ton of medical intervention inmany birth experiences.
(12:08):
This teaches us that that's theabsolute norm.
It kind of positions thebirthing person as passive,
right.
Something's happening to them.
They're not active, they're nottaking an active role in their
experience.
And it also kind of skews whowe see giving birth.
Right, think about who you seegiving birth.
Often it's a white woman.
(12:28):
It's going to be a white womangiving birth in a hospital
setting.
That's going to be a whitewoman giving birth in a hospital
setting.
That's as I think about themedia portrayals of birth I've
seen.
I can't think of anything otherthan that.
Maybe, maybe you have I reallydon't watch a lot of media in my
life but generally it's goingto be just a white woman giving
birth in a hospital.
(12:48):
That's also not super accurate,right?
There's lots of different birthsettings and a whole lot more
people than white women givebirth for sure.
And those culture influencescome into that too, which can be
a beautiful thing.
I love how other cultures tobring in their pieces around
childbirth as well.
So all of these perspectiveinfluence expectations, right.
(13:12):
They influence our anxietylevels around childbirth.
They influence our trust or ourlack of trust in the female
body and how it gives birth, andor it influences our trust or
lack of trust in the medicalsystems that surround that.
This influences how partnersshould quote, unquote, should or
often show up, right, they'rekind of set to the side, so it
(13:37):
can influence how partners areinvolved.
It can influence how cliniciansare viewed like oh you know,
they absolutely know everything.
They're the central figure inthis.
This can influence our birthplans and what we know or think
is possible about childbirth.
So we also have, of course, thephenomenon of social media and
there are a lot of examples ofbirth and this gets more real,
(14:01):
right, it's not as as scriptedthat you can find.
I remember health class yearsago used to be the only place
you could, or a childbirtheducation class was the only
place you could actually watch achildbirth um in video form,
and now you could look up onyoutube tiktok, like you can see
1 000 birth videos if youwanted to.
They are out there and so thatwe do have access to a lot of
(14:24):
and it's real, it's raw, thoseare like, oftentimes, real birth
experiences, right, so we havepeople out there that offer it's
more visible now, right, inreal senses.
It includes a lot of diversity,and you might see way more
empowerment in social media'sportrayals of childbirth than
anything else.
There's some really positivebirth content out there, talking
(14:48):
about VBACs or midwives orbirth centers or water birth or
physiologic birth, right, orsupported hospital birth or
whatever that might be Some ofthese.
However, we do have this aswell.
While we can edit all kinds ofthings they might have, they
might kind of give us the effectof having a perfect birth or an
aesthetically beautiful birth,right, um, some influencers are
(15:12):
going to show us exactly youknow what what they script their
birth to be.
Um, but birth can be messy,like it really can be pretty
messy, and, and some of ourvideos definitely show that um
it, it might show graphiccontent without context, right,
and so you don't see the wholepicture, know, the whole picture
.
That can feel kind ofoverwhelming and, and so
(15:33):
sometimes you know, we got someunregulated misinformation there
and information that can kindof spread and have an impact as
well.
So let's talk about what wewant to see, what we need to see
, what will be important to seeas we change the narrative, the
cultural narrative on masslevels about childbirth.
I love it when birth can beportrayed as normal, as powerful
(15:56):
and varied, like we're notgoing to.
Birth shouldn't look any oneway.
It can look a lot of differentways.
I love it when birth isportrayed that there's diverse
families, there's diversesettings.
We have home birth, birthcenters, hospitals.
Some people do free birth, alsorecognizing, realizing that
(16:17):
outcomes are different.
Sometimes a NICU stay isinvolved, sometimes an ambulance
ride is involved.
Those are realities.
They're not always the norm,thank goodness.
Knowing that different bodiesgive birth it's not just always
a gorgeous actress who's a whitewoman giving birth, but lots of
different types of bodies givebirth.
Um, bringing consent into thatSome of the portrayals in the
(16:42):
media there's no consent, right,this woman's out of her mind,
screaming and people are doingthings to her.
But knowing that consent is animportant part of it.
Autonomy is Informed, choicesare important.
Knowing that women areoftentimes in childbirth very
calm and collected, very strong.
They're very, very infrequentlyis there actually panic or
(17:02):
chaos.
Birth is usually prettybeautiful and chill right, like
yes, it's difficult, butnobody's running around the room
going crazy like we often seein the media.
While that's entertaining, itmight not be realistic.
So I all the time when I workwith clients as they're
preparing for birth, a lot ofthem say I had to get off Google
(17:24):
, I had to get off Instagram, Ihad to get off TikTok, because
even what they're finding theremight not be helpful to them,
right?
So be really intentional aboutthe kind of media that you
consume.
That's going to impact yourculture and your feelings about
childbirth.
Hopefully it's for the positive.
Look for what you want, and alot of people are gravitated to
what they want.
Sometimes your consumption ofsocial media around childbirth
(17:47):
will change how you want to dothings right.
They can persuade you to dothings a different way.
And then debrief with someonewho really works in that and
knows what's real and what's notreal.
I think it's fascinatingwatching any kind of childbirth
portrayed in videos or in mediaof some kind, especially when
it's scripted right and we haveactors doing it.
When it's not real people andreal birth, there's some
(18:10):
inaccuracies, for sure.
When things are absolutely notpossible, that might be
portrayed, but get into the realstories right.
Talk to people about their realstories and a lot of times
people focus on trauma.
So don't just focus on thetrauma, but pull out the
positive of other people's birthstories, whether it's someone
you're having a realconversation with or somebody
you are watching on social media.
(18:31):
So use social media responsiblyas you prepare for childbirth.
So again, go back to where yourfirst impressions of childbirth,
labor and delivery came from.
Your first impressions ofchildbirth, labor and delivery
came from.
Where are they built?
By media?
How accurate is that?
Are they built by your family,your community, culture, the
(18:54):
education you've been exposed toor not been exposed to, and go
out and kind of do some diggingand some exploring.
Sometimes you might need tounlearn some things, and that's
okay.
Sometimes you learn some newthings.
As I teach childbirth classes,either privately or in the
hospital, I love seeing thelights go on in people's head
Like wow, really I didn't knowthat, I didn't know that was
(19:16):
possible, or you can ask forthat or how that worked and I
love just seeing a curiouslearner you know whether that's
moms, dads, whoever's supportingthe birthing person.
It's awesome to see thoselights go on, because birth can
and should be positive,empowering and impactful in
people's lives, in all the livesthat are involved with that.
(19:37):
So take a good look at whereyour views come from and maybe
do some unlearning of what mediahas taught us.
So a couple interesting thingsnow, as we look at current.
You know some much more recentportrayals Pieces of a Woman was
in 2020.
Maybe you have watched that,but that's a home birth gone
(19:58):
tragically wrong, so that doessome teaching about home birth.
There's a pretty visceralperformance on there House of
the Dragon, if you've seen that.
From 2022, there's a verygraphic medieval c-section where
both the mom and the baby die,so that does some teaching to us
.
There's a TV series Dead Ringers2023, talks about a doctor, two
(20:24):
doctors who perform naturalbirths and c-sections, and
they're often way moreintentionally actually more
bloody and anatomically raw thanreal birth is right.
So birth generally isn't verybloody at all.
Grey's Anatomy you know theseason finale.
That one's a pretty popular one, but it's a very dramatic birth
scene during a blackout and astorm.
(20:45):
So very high emotion, highdrama and birth can be high
emotion, for sure, but this ismeant for entertainment, um.
So other ones 2022 we have thisis going to hurt.
Um, it kind of shows, you know,that that birth is messy,
chaotic, um, so, yeah, that kindof think of even star wars.
(21:06):
You know we have in star wars,um, where padme gives birth to
twins and she dies.
You know she has a tragic death, death after that and an
interesting one.
That's been pretty iconic andit's a much older one, is alien,
from 1979.
That's not even a humanchildbirth but, um, it's a
pretty visceral birth scene andone of the most iconic birth
(21:28):
scenes in media.
So these like it's culturalstorytelling, right, it's, it's
playing on fear and fascination.
But kind of go back to some real, look at some real births and
see what birth is like as youplan for, prepare and shift your
culture around birth, labor,birth and delivery, because our
(21:54):
society has a ways to go inmaking that a positive
experience for any and all of us.
Hopefully this has been helpfuland you can kind of explore
where your culture comes fromabout childbirth and hopefully
you can move forward and make animpact in your life for others.
That to make it more positive.
It's an awesome part of ourculture.
We all do it At some point.
We're all involved inchildbirth.
Thanks for being with me heretoday on the Ordinary Doula
(22:16):
podcast.
This is Angie Rozier, glad tospend this little bit of time
with you and, as always, reachout to someone who's been
meaningful in your life, letthem know it, thank them and
make that human connection today.
See you next time.
Have a great day wherever youare, whatever you're doing.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
I hope it's a good one.
Thank you for listening to theOrdinary Doula podcast with
Angie Rozier, hosted by BirthLearning.
(22:54):
Episode credits will be in theshow notes Tune in next time as
we continue to explore the manyaspects of giving birth.
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