Andrex Advert: Pooing in Labour!

[Roaminginthegloaming]

I’ve been watching a couple of programmes on ITV X this week and there is currently an advert from Andrex toilet rolls.

The advert is quite a long one; it’s all about various women all about to give birth and raising awareness that many women do a poo whilst in labour, whether in a birthing pool or on a hospital bed. (I can’t remember if they showed a home birth?). There was a guy with a fishing net to catch the floaters in a pool….

It showed a room full of heavily pregnant women in a childbirth class bouncing on yoga balls chanting “PUSH - POO”!

It also showed various women with their newborns saying things like “my partner wiped me when I did a poo” and another mum saying something along the lines of “well you might as well get used to the mess”.

There were a few shots of people waving an (Andrex) toilet roll around.

It all seemed pretty weird to me. I’m aware that over the years period adverts have become more graphic, but doing a poo whilst in labour isn’t something I’ve ever discussed with anyone before - not even my mum, my sisters or my friends (and they’ve never raised the subject either!). Maybe I’m getting too old…..

Thoughts?

So glad I ditched watching telly with adverts eons ago.
The ad sounds really grim. It reminds of really juvenile potty humour.
Pretty soon AI will be generating ads for novelty’s sake.

First child born in Southern California in the 1980’s. No mention of possible soiling before the birth and a very nice male consultant there at the birth. A very different experience with second child in the UK where the midwives were so busy we were left alone for a lot of the time and not offered any pain relief at all! Ah well, just can’t win..

I’m waiting for adverts aimed at men to catch up with this new frankness. Yet to see any offering solutions to willy drip stains on trousers. Maybe this focus on the less fragrant aspects of femaleness is due to advertising bros working through deep psychological issues to do with their mums?

I have just seen this ad for the first time. It’s the final straw for me; just one more example of ad-land characterising women (in increasingly graphic ways) as at the mercy of our bodily functions … like a pp said, do we need to give men any more excuses to think of us as at the mercy of our menopausal brains, gushing (oh god) with uncontrollable period blood, pissing ourselves when we do yoga, and now faecally incontinent? Yes, bring back the puppies, please. Oh, and this has GUARANTEED I will never be buying Andrex. Ever.

I don't like it one bit .it's awful .I think it's a non issue but something that could potentially upset younger pregnant girls .
I think bringing it into the spotlight like this is wholly unnecessary.

@cyn surely there never was any shame and we don't need Andrew to tell us that

I have no idea whether or not I pooed in any of my deliveries, because if I did the midwife (or the obstetrician who did the forceps delivery) just discreetly wiped it away without saying a word to me, which is what I'd learned to do myself when working in obstetrics. It happens; advising pregnant women and their birth partners that it's normal and harmless is fine, but hanging an advert on it seems gratuitous.

Comments for this shite are turned off its YouTube advert 😬

As proof that anyone can take offence at anything, this pisses me off.

I was told endlessly that you won't end up on your back, it's not like TV. And I asked over and over about the fast labours that run in my family.

Lo and behold I dilated fully in 20m and was shoved on my back with no kind of pain relief to have a classic TV birth. Which nobody had prepared me for because they were insisting it wouldn't happen.

So Andrew can bugger off out of this.

Eighties mother here , two standard births. You were always offered an enema on admission followed by a bath. Job done bowel empty no risk of poo when bearing down. Personally I was glad I had them and would have been mortified to poo. Now we just normalise it. Not saying the old way was right, but at least we had a choice.

@Mumsgirls It's normalised because it is normal. Physiologically it's totally normal.

I completely agree. Women's bodily functions that were private are now used as light-hearted advert material. "Oh my gush!" is a ridiculous ad. It all has a mocking "look at women's yucky bodies" feel. This isn't a good way of achieving openness and awareness.

I don't see the same gleeful exposure of men's health issues. Have there been ads about male incontinence, and "oh my dribbles" about elderly men's prostate problems?

But there’s no focus on gross things that happen to men’s bodies. Where’s the advert that shows men having wet dreams and waking up in a sticky mess? Or the campaign that pushes erectile dysfunction down our throats? Why is it always menopause, incontinence, period mess, shitting yourself during labour, etc.?

I'm in my sixties and totally agree. All it does is make out that if you're a younger woman you're going to be bleeding all over the place, and if you're middle aged you're going to be a mentally useless sweaty mess leaking out of all your orifices. It just makes out that women are constantly ruled by their bodily functions.

What has happened to the image of experienced, practical, capable, normal middle-aged women which most are? Why does the focus have to be on menopause?

From the experiences of my own sisters and friends none of us have involuntary bladder leaks, some have had menopause issues with hot flushes, some have taken HRT, none have had any issues with brain fog( I don't even know what that is supposed to be), in fact several have reached the highest pinnacle of their careers during menopause.

When I gave birth the first time 36 years ago I had no idea I might poo in labour. I had a water birth and when the feeling came I screamed out " I'm going to shit myself"! But apparently it was only a tiny bit and the midwife scooped it out with a tiny sieve. I don't think it would have changed anything if I had known, giving birth is hardly a dignified experience anyway.

@Crushed23 There are tonnes of ED ads!!!

@Youshouldbestrongerthanme there are ED ads, but they’re subtle and focus on the emotional side of ED. There’s no grossness. The equivalent of the ads being talked about here would be a solution to pee dribbles or the alternatives to a sock for the outcomes of wanking (pun intended).

@partystress But with ED, what more could an ad actually feature?
I think it's a good thing we normalise the natural physiology of birth, especially when natural, vaginal labours are becoming less and less common.
To add, my husband saw me poo when I was near to delivering our daughter (planned homebirth). I didn't care one bit! Not ashamed. In fact, the whole labour and birth experience was incredibly liberating and empowering; my body did exactly what it was supposed to do. And also an older mum at the time (39).
He's a grown and educated man so it didn't exactly come as a surprise.

@Youshouldbestrongerthanme I’m not saying anything else should be shown in relation to ED. I’m saying it’s not equivalent. And I’m not squeamish or in denial about what happens in childbirth or periods or any aspect of the experience of being female. I am joining in with objections to these things being commercialised for unrelated products by an industry that is still male-dominated.

I knew it was a possibility but didn't think it was likely. However it happened, just a little bit. Midwife quickly wiped it away.

Just saw this, mixed feelings. Didn’t agree with the statistic- ‘75% are worried, 100% don’t care afterwards’ I definitely cared afterwards too!

Yes my mum was talking about this. She had one child in the 80s when it was a thing, then her second child (me) in the 90s to find it was no longer offered. She said it was 100 times better experience having the enema first.

@flagpolesitta My guess it is no longer offered on the NHS as routine as obviously there is cost involved and it is not deemed as necessary. They are not without discomfort either.
I'd have declined had I been offered personally.
"While they were sometimes used in the past to prevent bowel movements during delivery, research shows they offer no medical benefits to the mother or baby and are an unnecessary practice." NHS.

I hated the advert. It was more degrading than educational. My sister summed it up when she said they don’t make adverts about men’s fecal incontinence.

The worst thing was I was in a cinema and couldn’t leave or switch it off!!!

@Peony1985 Perhaps Andrex could have done an homage to the final, painfree pre-labour poo instead? 😁

It's awful. I saw it at the cinema on an enormous screen. I don't need Andrex to raise awareness, thanks, and frankly it's got next to nothing to do with them, because even if it does happen, the midwives are hardly standing by with a six pack of bog rolls.

Unless they do a companion piece on men sharting, it's just more "reducing women to their bodily functions".