Air date: August 9, 2009

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Google "childbirth" and you'll come up with dozens of videos of, well, live childbirth. Why so many childbirth videos online? And is it worth taking a peek?

Jeremy Shere investigates.

Every now and again I like to go on YouTube and look up videos with a medical theme. A few weeks ago on the Checkup I talked about watching surgery videos online. This time, I searched for childbirth.

And I found everything: straightforward hospital births, hypno-births, spiritual births, home water-births. In one video, a naked, pregnant woman is on her knees, leaning face first against a large, rubber exercise ball. A guy who I assume is her husband is there too, helping, sort of. Mostly, there's a lot of loud moaning.

Now this video, like nearly all the childbirth videos I watched, leaves little to the imagination. You see pregnant women with legs spread. You see the baby's head emerge. You see blood.

And honestly, I'm not quite sure what to make of these videos. Is it good that so many people are putting them online?

"I guess I'm a little amazed that people want to share such an intimate time in their life with just anyone who wants to watch."

That's Cathy Green, a nurse and coordinator of the childbirth education program at Bloomington Hospital in Bloomington, Indiana. She said that, on the one hand, it's a good thing for people to be able to watch and learn about different types of birth online. But she's also worried that YouTube birth videos are taking the place of childbirth classes.

"Because we've seen a decrease of about 50% of couples to about 25% -- which is a troubling to me because they think, 'all I have to watch is this and I'll know everything.' I find people knowing less and less instead of more and more."

I'm Jeremy Shere.

Additional Resources:

• This article in the NYT discusses the phenomenon of childbirth movies on YouTube.
• Learn about childbirth classes and where to find one in your area.

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