Being Pregnant
Does Television Cause Fear of Childbirth?
In the past couple days, there has been a lot of talk about a clinical fear of childbirth, something that was certainly new to me, even as a childbirth educator and doula. But I am sure there is a clinical term for fear of most things in life.
The term tocophobia, or the unrelenting fear of childbirth, made an appearance in Jezebel the other day, and it sparked my interest because I have been writing about fear surrounding childbirth for a while. Just not the clinical kind.
But are women truly afraid, literally clinically afraid of having children? Or is it just a fear our society has been perpetuating through horrid depictions of birth on our televisions for as long as we can remember? I am willing to go with the less dramatic.
I flash back to watching General Hospital after school with my mother back in the day. The dramatic 1994 birth of Lulu — such a scary and surgical event for those Luke and Laura fans glued to the television like my mother was. I found myself tainted by childbirth from then on even though I was only in elementary school. I am sure other young girls shared similar experiences.
Since then it hasn’t gotten any better on television. Scary accidental home births on soap operas, Addison Montgomery turning every delivery into a near death experience on Private Practice, and A Baby Story with all their emergency situations to fuel ratings. I have come to a point in my life where I can no longer watch these deliveries on television because of what they represent.
Fear, and the broken maternity care system our country is thrusting on the next generation of mothers.
The message being sent to our sisters and daughters is that childbirth is something they should be fearing. Something scary, and emergent instead of the beautiful and peaceful event it can be. These less eventful deliveries are not making it into the public eye, while the crappy examples continue to flood the mainstream media.
Pushing these fears is a rising cesarean birth rate well over the recommended percentage the World Health Organization put in place for modern women of the United States. The multiples, and health conditions we see increasing risks in the women today. In fact, at the most we should see a 15 percent cesarean rate, and we are over double that. I know that is something that aided my fear of childbirth. Surgery is scary. Any kind of surgery. It is still scary to me after going through two c-sections myself, and various other surgical procedures over the years.
But ratings are what bring the money in. We shouldn’t expect to see low risk women birthing with midwives, or beautiful home births on these shows, and in prime time. They won’t get the numbers the networks need to stay afloat.
Although I think if we took a big time birth documentary like The Business of Being Born and put it on as a prime time special, it would get those same numbers the networks demand. And maybe help the next generation or even the current generation of mothers to take a second look at childbirth and maternity care as we know it.
Until then, we need to be the educators in our community and families, and help send the message that childbirth is not something we should be scared of because of the way it is handled today in our maternity care system.
photo: flickr.com/giarose
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[...] written before about the media portrayals of birth and their affects on women of birthing age. The new website for parents, Babble, also recently featured a blog post about television and its con… Knocked Up – The [...]
Fear of Childbirth – Part I – Why do we fear childbirth? « Birth True Blog commented on Dec 12 10 at 7:11 pmAlison commented on Dec 08 10 at 2:15 pmI completely agree that today’s media is scaring women. When I was pregnant, I had a lot of anxiety about something going wrong during the labor and birth, and I could not watch any of the baby shows on tv. I was extremely sensitive to horror stories, and wish that there had been more positive birth stories on tv. I wish for something a little bit more realistic. I was actually in nursing school when I was pregnant, and had clinical in the Family Birth Center. So, I saw a lot of real life stories, some were scary, but most were beautiful. I think the media needs to think about what they are doing to people, and what kind of negative impact they have on women these days.
Sheridan commented on Dec 10 10 at 4:33 pmI agree that media tends to focus on the high-risk scary births. This gives women the sense that birth is something to be feared. This is one reason why I like Hypnobabies so much, with hypnosis we are able to clear those fears from the moms thoughts and she will come to believe that birth can be safe and easy. An important thing for all pregnant moms to do!
I used Hypnobabies and it really helped me overcome my fears from my first birth and have a wonderful, positive birth. You can read my birth story and see my birth video at http://www.pregnancybirthandbabies.com
Victoria commented on Feb 18 11 at 2:33 amI’m five months pregnant now, and I have to say I haven’t encountered that many horror birth stories here in Australia. What I’m mostly concerned about is the normality of relying on drugs in childbirth. It seems to be such a medicalised process, even with the concentration on midwife-centred care in public hospitals. I’ve read up on it and decided I don’t want my baby to be born all drugged out, so I’ve enrolled in a Calmbirth course, where they teach you about the natural processes of the body and ways to work with your contractions instead of fighting against them. With all the women who use pain meds as standard practice around me, I’m not incredibly confident that I’ll be able to get through it without drugs, but I’m hopeful that by listening to my body and going with the natural processes and use physical positioning etc to minimise the horrible pain, I’ll be able to minimise drug use as much as possible.
Chantell commented on Sep 04 11 at 10:34 pmI am 22 weeks and 5 days pregnant, before I was pregnant I would watch programmes like ‘One Born Every Minute’ and ‘Teen Mom’ or A&E documentaries to do with pregnancy & labour.
I still watch them now quite happily, and even though the thought of labour is constantly on my mind, the documentaries of when things go wrong don’t bother me at all. I know that every birth is different, that we’re designed for this, and that it’s meant to hurt at least a little – just natures way of saying; “push!”
Whilst I am not afraid of labour, I do still understand what can go wrong, and although I would love a homebirth, I find it necessary to be in a hospital in case anything goes awry. I won’t be having an epidural, gas & air, or any of the other pain relief options. I’m taking mum with me to make sure I don’t give in. She’s very stubborn. =)
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