Sarah Griffith of the Atlanta area, with her newborn son, is one of thousands of women who have posted childbirth videos on YouTube.

BY MALIA WOLLAN


By her eighth month of pregnancy, Rebecca Sloan, a 35-year-old biologist living in Mountain View, California, 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.

Amateur directors like Ms. Griffith think of their home movies as a way to demystify childbirth by showing other women - and their nervous husbands - candid images they might not otherwise see until their contractions begin. Inevitably most childbirth videos are graphic, challenging not just You- Tube’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. Most childbirth videos are age restricted.

Women logging onto YouTube to watch birth is a natural inclination, said Eugene Declercq, a professor at the Boston University School of Public Health. “A hundred and fifty years ago women viewed birth on a pretty regular basis - they saw their sisters or neighbors giving birth,” he said, adding that it wasn’t until the late 19th century that birthing moved out of living rooms and bedrooms and into hospitals. “But now, with YouTube, we’ve come back around and women have this opportunity to view births again.”

Ms. Griffith’s footage is difficult to watch. Bastian weighed almost 5 kilograms at birth, and she did not edit out the close-ups, the screaming, groaning and cussing. “My goal is not to scare anybody,” she said. “But if someone is pregnant and they haven’t wrapped their head around the fact that there is pain involved, then they might want to start.”

The thousands of online childbirth videos, mommy chat rooms and pregnancy blogs are changing the dynamic between pregnant women and their attendant medical professionals.

“The more information you have, the more sources you have, the more informed you are, the better questions you ask,” said Eileen Ehudin Beard, an adviser for the 6,500-member American College of Nurse-Midwives. But videos of complicated or difficult births could be detrimental, Ms. Beard said, especially if they made women more fearful of delivering a baby.

Eleven months ago in Mountain View, Ms. Sloan recorded the birth of her son, Urban. She says she feels a little squeamish about putting it on YouTube, and she’s not sure what her husband would say. Still, eventually she thinks her video will become one more public testament to the agony and beauty of birth.

“I found it so helpful to see those videos,” Ms. Sloan said, “and I am so grateful to the families that shared them I feel like I want to return the favor.”