Stuff Homebirthers Like #4: YouTube birth videos

When’s the last time one of your friends shared a video of her baby emerging from a caesarean incision? Probably never. But you’re almost guaranteed to get a video from your homebirthing pal. In fact, she posted her birth on YouTube and made it public so complete strangers can marvel at her expanding vagina.

Homebirthers love sharing videos of their births. Often these videos contain photo montages of moms slumped over birth pools as new age music plays in the background. Sometimes the videos have captions cut in – “almost there!” or “1 centimeter to go!” – sort of like a football play-by-play but with more sweat.

Put “birth video” into the search field on YouTube and the whole first page of results gives you homebirthers in action (okay, there are also some animal births and a Monty Python sketch). But what you won’t see, until you dig into the depths of YouTube, is video of a hospital-gowned woman delivering her baby with the aid of an epidural, a fetal heart monitor, and a small army of medical personnel. It's not that hospital-birthers don't film their births. I'm sure they do. They just don't broadcast them to the world.

So why do homebirthers feel compelled to publicize their births? Well, for one, home births are pretty fucking cool. If you've never seen a natural labor, watch a video. It's an amazing sight, sort of Marcus Welby meets Little House on the Prairie but with way more tarp. You can't help but feel impressed by the miracle of birth and how fabulous women can look even in the throes of labor.

And lest you think these videos are intended to educate close-minded rubes about the benefits of homebirth, let's clarify the second reason homebirthers post to YouTube - because other homebirthers consume homebirth videos like encapsulated placentas. Homebirthers watch birth videos so we can say, "Holy shit, I did that?" and then, "Holy shit, I did that!"