By her eighth month of pregnancy, Rebecca Sloan, a 35-year-old biologist living in Mountain View, Calif., had read the what-to-expect books, taken the childbirth classes, joined the mommy chat rooms and still had no idea what she was in for. So, like countless expectant mothers before her, Ms. Sloan typed "childbirth" into YouTube's search engine. Up popped thousands of videos, showing everything from women giving birth under hypnosis, to Caesarean sections, to births in bathtubs.
"I just wanted to see the whole thing," Ms. Sloan said. And see it she did, compliments of women like Sarah Griffith, a 32-year-old from the Atlanta area who, when she gave birth to her son Bastian, invited her closest friends to join her. One operated the camera, capturing Ms. Griffith's writhing contractions, the baby's crowning head and his first cries. Afterward, Ms. Griffith posted an hour of footage on YouTube in nine installments, which have since been watched more than three million times. "Childbirth is beautiful, and I'm not a private person," Ms. Griffith said.
Mom-and-pop directors like Ms. Griffith think of their home movies as a way to demystify childbirth by showing other women — and their weak-kneed husbands — candid images they might not otherwise see until their contractions begin. If YouTube can illustrate how to solve a Rubik's Cube, pick a lock and poach an egg, maybe it can also demonstrate how to give birth. Recently, a British couple became tabloid fodder after the woman gave birth, assisted only by her husband using a YouTube birthing video as tutorial.
Inevitably most childbirth videos are graphic, challenging not just YouTube's rules but also societal conventions on propriety.
More ...
