Pay attention to what they are telling you in the titles and the "small print" as well. For example, that show is called "Special Deliveries." Special, i.e., extraordinary, unusual, out of the norm, different. I watched Maternity Ward, my husband gets freaked out, but I don't. They stated up front in the beginning that they were filming at a high risk OB hospital ward, so up front I knew this was not going to be about normal birthing.
Then there is a show that is filmed at a maternity center (read, midwife run) in Miami. The births on that show are wonderful! Mostly water births, and Moms up and walking around, in their own clothes, not hospital gowns, no tubes and wires attached to them. There was one dad on that show who was gearing up to start his surgical residency. After watching his wife water birth their baby, he decided to change his specialty altogether, scrapped surgery and decided to go into a more holistic field of medical practice.
If you see a midwife, ask her if she has any DVDs of home births or other natural births to give you a boost. My first appt. with my midwife she gave me a DVD of a Mexican midwife who water birthed her own baby at home. It was lovely, I watched it with DD and it was just a beautiful, inspiring birth.
She talked about how she noticed that when she was walking through her contractions, when she was walking towards her husband and looking him in the eye she felt light, and the contrax were manageable and she felt them as the power of her body to birth their baby. But, when she turned to walk the other way, they became painful, unmanageable and undermined her sense of power.
So, they decided that she would put her hands on his shoulders, and he would just walk backwards around wherever she needed to walk. She kept her eyes locked on his through the contractions, because the love and support of her partner filled her with calm and the sense that it was all okay and she could do it.
It was truly a peaceful, beautiful birth. I'll try to find her name, and maybe you can find the video.
Meanwhile, if you're going to watch TV, do so with a very large amount of skepticism at what they're showing you!! My husband said to me, "doesn't that freak you out to see all those problems?" And, I replied, "No, because I know that that is not our birth. I know I don't need all those things, and I'm planning a peaceful, joyful home birth. And, I trust that if we encounter anything that the midwife sees as a problem, we are 10 minutes from help." Don't let the establishment get you down. Our bodies were made to be able to birth a baby!
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