My Opinion

This is going to suck. Somehow I am going to piss off a lot of people by this post and manage to not articulate what I want to say very well at all.

A local business I follow, dedicated to empowering and educating women about choices in childbirth shared a link to a blog about a new Lifetime Network Show: One Born Every Minute. The blog had a scathing reaction to the show.

I had seen the promos for this show and brushed it off, but then a hippie couple caught my eye and I DVR'd it.

Full Disclosure: I am crunchy leaning mom. I also had a medicated birth that was awful. Wholeheartedly, I wish I had found information about choices in childbirth before instead of going along with the program. What I have learned in the interim has DRASTICALLY changed my view of childbirth.

Childbirth is a normal occurrence. Shows like these do not help women feel empowered and learn to trust their bodies.

Under most circumstances, routine interventions are unnecessary and cause more harm than good.

If birth were more normalized- we as a culture would be in a lot better position. In years past women saw their mothers, cousins, sisters, etc have babies, they saw what happened and learned not to fear birth but to trust it.

In my experience I had to argue and debate and negotiate to have things 'my way'. Of course, I would have loved to have a different provider, but the sad truth is, they are not available to everyone or covered by insurance.

So in my opinion, this show does a disservice to women, babies, and their partners.