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The Baby Has Landed review – where’s the blood, sweat and vomit?!

Promising a ‘window into modern family life’, this new series follows a group of expectant parents – all of whom are coping suspiciously well

I have only one consistent criterion for judging shows about childbirth and newborns and that is: are they honest? Specifically, are they more honest than the supposedly revolutionary Channel 4 series, One Born Every Minute? Which, of course, was nothing of the sort. The editing was so selective that vaginas across the country should have sued for misrepresentation.

Another way of formulating the question would be: does this perpetuate or challenge the myth that childbirth is generally OK? Intense, sure, and occasionally dramatic, but essentially OK. How close does it come to the responsible reporting ideal, which would be to have a news ticker running along the bottom of the screen during every scene of a swaddled newborn with a handknitted cap on its head, saying things like: “We had to discard 85% of footage after things took a turn too hellish to be broadcast”; and “23 perineums were torn during the making of this programme, OMFG; here is the number for your local family planning clinic, have it tattooed somewhere visible at all times.”

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from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2OsWVZC
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