{"id":567,"date":"2009-06-11T06:12:00","date_gmt":"2009-06-11T06:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2009\/06\/lights-camera-contraction-the-phenomenon-of-giving-birth-on-youtube.html"},"modified":"2009-06-11T06:12:00","modified_gmt":"2009-06-11T06:12:00","slug":"lights-camera-contraction-the-phenomenon-of-giving-birth-on-youtube","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/06\/lights-camera-contraction-the-phenomenon-of-giving-birth-on-youtube.html","title":{"rendered":"Lights! Camera! Contraction! The phenomenon of giving birth on YouTube"},"content":{"rendered":"

I still remember when wedding videos were a novelty. But now, it seems, more and more people are getting into the business of birth<\/i> videos — and sharing them with anyone and everyone, via YouTube<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/a> reports: <\/p>\n

<\/a> 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 \u201cchildbirth\u201d into YouTube\u2019s search engine. Up popped thousands of videos, showing everything from women giving birth under hypnosis, to Caesarean sections, to births in bathtubs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just wanted to see the whole thing,\u201d 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\u2019s writhing contractions, the baby\u2019s crowning head and his first cries. Afterward, Ms. Griffith posted an hour of footage on YouTube<\/a> in nine installments, which have since been watched more than three million times. \u201cChildbirth is beautiful, and I\u2019m not a private person,\u201d Ms. Griffith said.<\/p>\n

Mom-and-pop directors like Ms. Griffith think of their home movies as a way to demystify childbirth by showing other women \u2014 and their weak-kneed husbands \u2014 candid images they might not otherwise see until their contractions begin. If YouTube can illustrate how to solve a Rubik\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Inevitably most childbirth videos are graphic, challenging not just YouTube\u2019s rules but also societal conventions on propriety.<\/p>\n

\u201cNudity is generally prohibited on YouTube,\u201d said Victoria Grand, the site\u2019s head of policy. \u201cBut we make exceptions for videos that are educational, documentary or scientific.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

At first Ms. Sloan says she felt timid watching. She remembers one video featuring a couple speaking Dutch or German in which the man embraced the woman gently from behind while she crouched and swayed. Soon, Ms. Sloan was in tears. \u201cIt was really moving,\u201d she said. \u201cThe videos are so unsensational, they\u2019re largely unedited and people aren\u2019t making money off of their videos. And so the purpose seems very genuine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Women logging onto YouTube to watch birth is a natural inclination, said Eugene Declercq, a professor at the Boston University School of Public Health. \u201cA hundred and fifty years ago women viewed birth on a pretty regular basis \u2014 they saw their sisters or neighbors giving birth,\u201d he said, adding that it wasn\u2019t until the late 19th century that birthing moved out of living rooms and bedrooms and into hospitals. \u201cBut now, with YouTube, we\u2019ve come back around and women have this opportunity to view births again.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There’s more at the link. And, of course, at YouTube.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I still remember when wedding videos were a novelty. But now, it seems, more and more people are getting into the business of birth videos — and sharing them with anyone and everyone, via YouTube. The New York Times reports: By her eighth month of pregnancy, Rebecca Sloan, a 35-year-old biologist living in Mountain View,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":365,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-links-r-us","category-media"],"yoast_head":"\nLights! Camera! Contraction! The phenomenon of giving birth on YouTube - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/06\/lights-camera-contraction-the-phenomenon-of-giving-birth-on-youtube.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lights! Camera! Contraction! The phenomenon of giving birth on YouTube - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I still remember when wedding videos were a novelty. But now, it seems, more and more people are getting into the business of birth videos — and sharing them with anyone and everyone, via YouTube. The New York Times reports: By her eighth month of pregnancy, Rebecca Sloan, a 35-year-old biologist living in Mountain View,…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/06\/lights-camera-contraction-the-phenomenon-of-giving-birth-on-youtube.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-06-11T06:12:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/SjDZpqjMbjI\/AAAAAAAAFuo\/kjDSVQpUu1s\/s320\/births.190.1.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"deacon greg kandra\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Lights! Camera! Contraction! The phenomenon of giving birth on YouTube - The Deacon's Bench","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/06\/lights-camera-contraction-the-phenomenon-of-giving-birth-on-youtube.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Lights! Camera! Contraction! The phenomenon of giving birth on YouTube - The Deacon's Bench","og_description":"I still remember when wedding videos were a novelty. But now, it seems, more and more people are getting into the business of birth videos — and sharing them with anyone and everyone, via YouTube. The New York Times reports: By her eighth month of pregnancy, Rebecca Sloan, a 35-year-old biologist living in Mountain View,…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/06\/lights-camera-contraction-the-phenomenon-of-giving-birth-on-youtube.html","og_site_name":"The Deacon's Bench","article_published_time":"2009-06-11T06:12:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/SjDZpqjMbjI\/AAAAAAAAFuo\/kjDSVQpUu1s\/s320\/births.190.1.jpg"}],"author":"deacon greg kandra","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/06\/lights-camera-contraction-the-phenomenon-of-giving-birth-on-youtube.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/06\/lights-camera-contraction-the-phenomenon-of-giving-birth-on-youtube.html","name":"Lights! Camera! Contraction! The phenomenon of giving birth on YouTube - The Deacon's Bench","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/06\/lights-camera-contraction-the-phenomenon-of-giving-birth-on-youtube.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/06\/lights-camera-contraction-the-phenomenon-of-giving-birth-on-youtube.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/SjDZpqjMbjI\/AAAAAAAAFuo\/kjDSVQpUu1s\/s320\/births.190.1.jpg","datePublished":"2009-06-11T06:12:00+00:00","dateModified":"2009-06-11T06:12:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/052b8cd86cc713feaccdc8282b03cf10"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/06\/lights-camera-contraction-the-phenomenon-of-giving-birth-on-youtube.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/06\/lights-camera-contraction-the-phenomenon-of-giving-birth-on-youtube.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/06\/lights-camera-contraction-the-phenomenon-of-giving-birth-on-youtube.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/SjDZpqjMbjI\/AAAAAAAAFuo\/kjDSVQpUu1s\/s320\/births.190.1.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/SjDZpqjMbjI\/AAAAAAAAFuo\/kjDSVQpUu1s\/s320\/births.190.1.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/06\/lights-camera-contraction-the-phenomenon-of-giving-birth-on-youtube.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Lights! Camera! Contraction! The phenomenon of giving birth on YouTube"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/","name":"The Deacon's Bench","description":"Where a Roman Catholic Deacon Ponders the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/052b8cd86cc713feaccdc8282b03cf10","name":"deacon greg kandra","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a4e\/a4e07ce6fde3f10d4d9753243fd48d45x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a4e\/a4e07ce6fde3f10d4d9753243fd48d45x96.jpg","caption":"deacon greg kandra"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/deacon-greg-kandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/365"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}