Women’s Health Communication by Hall Jennifer G.;

Author:Hall, Jennifer G.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lexington Books

Chapter 7

As Seen on TV

Earlier in the book we met Catt who had to terminate one of her triplets during her pregnancy to save the pregnancy and her other two triplets. Following the termination surgery she was placed on bed rest and had a lot of time on her hands to watch TV, but she quickly found that she could no longer watch the shows about pregnancy that she had previously loved. When she did turn them on she found herself getting angry when she watched. She explained, “And it made me sick, like sick to my stomach to watch them because they were all happy and wonderful, and they had the rainbow.” She was upset that the shows only were showing the happy side of birth and she was mad that her own pregnancy experience had been so hard and she already suffered a huge loss in the loss of her daughter and she still was unsure of what would happen to her surviving triplets. Catt is a pediatric nurse and says that prior to having children one of her favorite things to watch were the specials on channels like TLC and Discovery Health that featured medical anomalies like “the smallest girl in the word,” or “the boy with five legs.” After she had her children she found that she couldn’t even watch any kind of medical shows because it was now too frightening to her to think that something else could possibly go wrong with one of her children. Having lost one child in utero and having her surviving triplets born early it terrified her that there was still so much out in the world that could hurt them. What she had once found entertaining, interesting, and informative, was now a source of pain and anxiety as it just added to her ongoing mental list of what dangers could possibly lurk in her surviving twin’s future.

Media is a pervasive entity in our lives and through media we are often exposed to messages and stories about pregnancy and birth. In fact, it is difficult to flip through the channels on the TV without encountering some sort of reference to pregnancy, childbirth, or babies. Even commercials play on our general love of cute and tiny babies. One of my favorite series of commercials ever are black and white 30-second commercials that feature mothers engaging in the most basic of mothering tasks such as bathing a chubby infant in the sink or rocking a yawning, curly-haired infant in the nursery. The sounds in the commercial are soft music combined with the sweet giggles and sighs of the adorable baby closing with the tag line, “Having a Baby Changes Everything.” This Johnson & Johnson commercial epitomizes what could be considered a cultural ideal of motherhood—that having a child changes your world and this change means a life full of tender and joyous moments. This commercial gets me every time even though I am keenly aware of all of the less than tender and joyous moments that motherhood entails.

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