Where babies come from (don’t look!)

A few weeks ago the New York Times had an article on the proliferation of YouTube videos showing home recordings of the labor and birth processes:

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.

“Nudity is generally prohibited on YouTube,” said Victoria Grand, the site’s head of policy. “But we make exceptions for videos that are educational, documentary or scientific.” YouTube employees regularly review graphic videos and, depending on the content, may decide to leave a video up, restrict access to those 18 and older or remove the video altogether. Explicit medical videos are among the exceptions, allowing cyberpatients and other viewers 18 and over to watch videos of colonoscopies, appendectomies and open-heart surgery. Most childbirth videos are age restricted.

Around 2001, I finally learned to tie a tie using the internet as my guide, but I’m not sure I could go to YouTube, like this guy did, and feel confident about performing an emergency delivery. Nor was I very eager to check out the videos on YouTube even for “educational” purposes. For real, I got grossed out watching the birth movie they made us watch in 9th grade.

Today, I was surprised to discover that educational systems in other countries may start with the birth tutorials much earlier than 9th grade. Here’s a children’s book from Germany that takes the reader from beginning to end; from when Mommy decides she kinda likes Daddy, to the point where the baby is delivered at the Hospital. 

Click the link, and then click the images to read the rest of the book. WARNING: It’s gets very, uh, specific.

The doctor’s creepy smile makes me exceedingly glad that Jordan’s OB is a woman.