Our Flemish TV stations are all running reality shows revolving around child birth at one time or another, and they have been doing so for several years now. Basically, they are all the same, only the titles of the series differ.

And yup, the camera follows the woman/couple from the moment the contractions start, up untill the final moment into the delivery room! Or captures every minute when it’s a home birth. No exception if it’s a C-section, though I have to say they don’t show the actual operation, just the face of the soon to be mom and some doctors and surgical instruments. Real footage of umbilical cords being cut, newborns covered in blood and sebum, screaming women and fainting husbands..it’s all on TV in prime time. Close ups from vaginas are not shown (but it’s on the edge) or are blurred.

The birth itself doesn’t shock me or gross me out, but the fact that hundreds of couples want to share this intimate moment with the rest of Flanders, is something I can’t fathom. And in the course of years, literally hundreds of them passed over the TV screen.
The feeling of ‘invading someone’s privacy’ creeps up to me and that’s why I don’t watch..I only see parts in trailers or when I zap through channels.

(Wallonia and other European countries than Belgium probably show similar series,
but I can’t think of anyone in his/her right mind who wants to see more of the same..).

She’ll be fine; yes it’s scary but once you get in there you just want to get it over with.  lol. 

We have the same shows here in the US that I watched while I was pregnant with my first and just out of plain curiosity.  Some of the mothers on the show were going thru the same problems that I was going thru…i.e. gestational diabetes/multiples, so it kind of made me feel that I wasn’t alone whatsoever with my kind of situation.  Plus, after you have a baby and have been prodded in every way imaginable, eventually you don’t care who sees what with subsequent pregnancies.

Pepsi Lover, the programs I was talking about don’t address any of the issues you mentioned.
It’s (like they often call it on the blogs) only about “popping one out”.

There are more serious shows that follow the couples or single moms
some time before and after the birth
and you can see those people go on doctor’s consult, or talking to their midwives.
I agree that one can get information out of these series.

Been pregnant is the most wonderful thing in their lives to some
women., they educate themselves, accept, and embrace everything about the pregnancy.

Nnz, the key words in your comment are “some women”.
Not all women embrace pregnancy the way you describe it,
plus: Jamie Lynn is merely 17 (16 when she got pregant)..that’s barely a ‘woman’.

All in all, I do think Jamie Lynn is doing a good job, she seems mature and it looks like she has her priorities straight.
Okay, getting pregnant so young was not the smartest move, but she takes the responsibility for that ‘misstep’.

Is it just me, or do women in the US really choose for C-sections
to avoid pain rather than for medical reasons?
I’m glad that most gynaecologists here never gave in to such demands (C-sections, ‘scheduled’ births).
It’s even becoming a trend to give birth at home again,
which would be a lot easier if we had the same rights like women in The Netherlands have.

Most of the women I know have given birth by C-section.
I, myself, gave birth the natural way, I was in labor for 7 painful hours,
and I’m glad cuz it gave me the needed curves my baby was lacking.
I was in my early 20s, weighing at 85 pounds when I became pregnant.